If your Multifunction Timegrapher tells such good time, why did you bother getting a watch?
I don’t have a strap that fits it.
You should be able to find one. It doesn’t look any bigger than your average Pip-Boy.
I’m going to list some thoughts. This is the type of thing I might have wanted to talk about on the WUS forum but oh well. @anonymgeist you have created a monster!
Preface - I don’t like Komamdorski or Amphibia watches or anything with the military or dive look. Actually I like the Poljot Okeah but not enough to buy one! I want to end up with either a dress watch or a casual watch. Currently I wear an Asus smartwatch for everything so I can hardly be less fashionable no matter what I end up with. Final preface - I’m cheap. I like to say I’m frugal and in many things I am but in this case it’s reasonable to admit I’m cheap. Even $50 feels like a lot to spend on a watch. But since I’m still looking at them two weeks later and am still bothered by being banned from a watch forum I’m willing to think about putting some money down.
I have this Pobeda with the moire textured dial on the way
I like a lot of other colorful ones from the 80’s and might end up with some more but I’m also drawn to the older watches with even crazier dials (I haven’t bought any of these).
What I’m trying to decide is whether the obvious wear and age on the dials will bug me over time. The embossed look and the geometric designs are great but I’m not quite confident enough in my sense of style to make them every day watches. Yet I don’t want to buy a watch unless I am willing to wear it daily (maybe in rotation or not for certain events of course). BTW, for the watch purists, I believe all three of those have the wrong hands and one has a mismatched set. I don’t like the mismatched part but I can live with the wrong hands.
Something about the old dials looks cool to me.
They’re amazing devices, but I find it very distracting when I’m actually wearing one. I fiddle with them constantly.
We’re Alpinist brothers! I don’t wear mine very often these days. I’ve usually got my Samsung Gear S2 on which is infinitely more useful although admittedly very soulless compared to a good automatic.
Two more for the collection:
Another Vostok Komandirskie. Snagged this for $15 and it has quickly become one of my favorites. Pictures don’t really do it justice… The numbering is mirrored, and the blue on the dial is a beautiful metallic shade that ranges between sky blue and near black depending on the angle. Paired wonderfully with this red NATO strap I had.
And I splurged a bit on my one legitimately fancy Soviet watch: a Poljot Sekonda 3133 chronograph, and a Crown & Buckle leather band. Cheap by watch standards, but still more than three times anything else I’ve got. But it’ll be nice to have something for formal occasions.
Are those watches automatics?
They’re both manual winding.
How often do you wind them?
I go through the whole set and wind them in the morning, but I tend to wind the one I’m wearing a couple of times throughout the day just because. I think the Vostoks have a reserve of 30 hours, and the Poljot should be good for 52 hours?
I managed to lose my Seiko 55 Fathoms, and to be honest I wasn’t that upset. The timekeeping was abysmal, to the tune of nearly a minute a day. Anyone have a clean automatic chronometer-grade option that doesn’t cost a fortune?
Seems like the Tissot Powermatic 80 might be a good option?
That looks quite nice! I’ve danced around Tissot a bit, they seem to be fairly open to innovation, and I really wanted the Sea Touch (completely different watch than we’re talking about now) to be a great watch but alas, it was crap. Anything a bit more diver-ish on the rugged scale?
How about this one?
Mmm, I like the look of that. Chunky in build but only 40mm, that’s a nice balance. I’ll google around to see how well it keeps time, I didn’t see that it was chronometer grade in the article but I can tolerate a minute or so a week, just not every day. Big bonus for not being a turtle, if there’s one thing I hate in watches is the turtle lug configuration.
I guess it’s only certain versions of the Sea Wolf that are certified. You’d want the 68 Saturation model.
Ach, that’s the performance that I crave, but I hate how they took the lugs completely off so it’s a dinner plate on a rope. To google!
I had a Vostok pocketwatch, but i was a stupid YA and took it with me inner tubing and left it in a restroom. I wanted to become a teacher just because of that watch, because i would have loved to set it on the desk and watch the kids squirm listening to it tick whilst doing their ____, whatever, quiz or something. You could hear that thing from across the room. It also had to be wound daily and lost minutes a day, so it was hardly a precision timepiece.
Edit: I’m misremembering. I think it was a Molnija maybe?