[JacobC]

Hello Comrades,

I picked up another watch recently but I am struggling with its origins. At the time all seemed right with it, it was sold as used and worn and is in good condition considering. But after some shopping on Russia2All, I'm fairly confident that it is this watch by Volmax. With that said, I know Volmax makes a lot of these with leftover Poljot surplus. But it's really the caseback and SU stamp that have me confused now, especially after seeing the watch currently for sale by Volmax with the 2614 movement. Thoughts?

 

[Mister Mike]

I don't believe that Volmax made this. It appears to have been made by someone with access to old Poljot movements and various parts. The case and crown are different from the Volmax watch at R2A. The movement is genuine Poljot, but the rest of the watch has a murky provenance. It's still a cool looking watch, though.

 

[JacobC]

I don't believe that Volmax made this. It appears to have been made by someone with access to old Poljot movements and various parts. The case and crown are different from the Volmax watch at R2A. The movement is genuine Poljot, but the rest of the watch has a murky provenance. It's still a cool looking watch, though.

Is it possible someone put a Volmax dial on a similar damaged Poljot?

 

[sci]

I also share the opinion, that it was assembled by several genuine parts, except the case back. PYCCKNNABNATOP is written with Latin characters, the width of the letters Ю Щ is obvious bigger than the rest... another option is, in the last years of Poljot (when they had the Aviator line already) out of complete struggling to insource parts from the cheapest suppliers from China, accepting such inconsistencies.

 

[emoscambio]

I do not believe that this watch was made nor even seriously claims to have been made in Russia. For instance, JL watches also have "Russia" (his Strelas) or "Russian Movement", and not "Made in Russi"a (as Volmax Strelas). The same difference as between "Swiss" or "Switzerland", and "Swiss Made".

The back is an awfully cheap China thing, not badly executed, but full of mistakes. China can produce good stuff, see the cases of Junkers, RusCamera's Kirova, Volmax, Vostok-Europe.

Pmwf.ru officials, even now that the company is not producing anymore, repeatedly warned against anything reading Poljot and produced after 2004 as being a fake.

 

[sci]

Actually the half of JL Strelas have Сделано в России on the dial...

 

[JacobC]

Seems like I found my first Franken, shame that I actually like the watch so much. Why are some of tese watches branded ABNATOP and so e as Aviator? Even the clearly legit ones. We're some for export?

 

[Perdendosi]

Why are some of tese watches branded ABNATOP and so e as Aviator? Even the clearly legit ones. We're some for export?

Yes, as that was standard practice for Russian watches (some with Cyrillic and oftentimes the same dial with Latin characters "for the export market). Though perhaps the better phraseology now is that some people want Cyrillic dials and some people want Latin -- (See JL's Strelas, or the Sturmanskie line out now.) They're not necessarily for "export" or "domestic" markets, but rather international preferences.