newbie need help with identifying zaria 17 jewel watch

matsi said:

Hello!

My grandparents lived from 1949-1960 in Russia and they came back with this watch.

It has written on it Zaria, 17 Jewels, Made in USSR

If anyone could tell me more I would really appreciate it.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

I guess the watch you have there has the 1509 movement. It`s a 15 mm diameter movement used for woman's watches. To make sure of it, you should open back to look at the movement.

Best regards,
Silversen.

michele said:

Usually the 1509 was used in narrow cases, while the 2009 was used in round cases, similarly to Chaika 1601 and 1301. However i have seen also "narrow" movements in round cases, so the only way to check is to open the caseback.

Click to expand...

Caro amico Michele! Of course, you`re right. We both know that in the time of the USSR, movements for woman`s watches were used for man`s. These type of watches sometimes are called "watches with a lot of air inside". I just can`t remember any 17 jewels Zaria movement except 1601 and 1509.

OT:
By the way, just for curiosity, maybe you are interested to look at automatic Zaria 2016 which I saw at the Russian watch forum.
http://forum.watch.ru/showthread.php?t=9564

There is another two: 17 jewels version of 2009 and 17 jewels 2008
(Mark Gordon`s site: http://www.ussrtime.com/start.html and http://www.ussrtime.com/start.html) :-d

What a wonderful person Mark is!:-! :thanks

michele said:

Oh, yes, i know it - here is mine. Very nice mini-automatic movement.

Click to expand...

Bravo! Ti invìdio! :-!

michele said:

Zarja produced two series of 20 mm calibers. This is the first one, 17 jewels:

and this is the second version (2009B), still produced by Maktime. They are two radically different movement, the 2009B has 21 jewels.

And this is the "narrow" 1509B, 17 jewels, used in "round" cases too.

Click to expand...

Si, amico mio. Lo conosco adesso.
I looked through Mark's catalog.

Юность (Junost / Youth) 2009 (15 jewels), 1960s
Весна / Vesna and Аврора / Aurora 2009.1A (17 jewels), 1959
Заря / Zaria 2008 (17 jewels), 1970s-1980s

As for 2016, you and Mark have rectangular case watch. I saw a round case 2016 on the Russian watch forum. They say the 2016 in this type of case even rarer then the rectangular one.