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Marking Time
Marking Time
Marking Time
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Marking Time

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The work is an illustrated guide for collectors of Russian watches. The books consists of a series of reviews of a variety of Russian wristwatches and pocketwatches. Each review is accompanied with illustrations of the watch being discussed along with objective and subjective evaluations.

An additional illustrated section discussing Russian watch movements is included.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 18, 2011
ISBN9780615471679
Marking Time
Author

Edward Brandwein

Born and raised in NYC. Married with two kids. Lawyer/law librarian by trade. I've been collecting watches for about ten years now. I became interested in Russian watches about six years ago when I was given one by a friend.Queens College BA, MLSNew York Law School JD

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    Book preview

    Marking Time - Edward Brandwein

    Marking Time

    A Guide to Russian Watch Collecting

    by Edward Brandwein

    Copyright ©2011 Edward Brandwein

    ISBN: 978-0-615-47167-9

    Smashwords Edition

    This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Please do not participate in or encourage the piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

    Table of Contents

    Introduction

    Chapter 1: The Russians

    Chapter 2: The Vostok Amphibia

    Chapter 3: The Ministry Amphibia

    Chapter 4: The Russian Watch Forum Radio Operator Review

    Chapter 5: The Original Radio Operator

    Chapter 6: The Vostok Komandirskie

    Chapter 7: The Komandirskie Revisited

    Chapter 8: The Vostok Desert Shield Generalskie

    Chapter 9: The Ostwok Vostok Generalskie

    Chapter 10: The Vostok Neptune

    Chapter 11: The Komandirskie 3AKA3

    Chapter 12: The Poljot Buran Chronograph

    Chapter 13: The Raketa 24 Hour

    Chapter 14: The Raketa Braille Watch

    Chapter 15: The Molnija Pocket Watch

    Chapter 16: The Poljot Shturmanskie Chronograph and Poljot Gagarin re-issue

    Chapter 17: The Zlatoust Diver re-issue

    Chapter 18: The Pobeda

    Chapter 19: The Type 1

    Chapter 20: The Movements

    Chapter 21: Combinations & Modifications

    Conclusion

    Introduction

    I'm willing to bet that when most folks hear the phrase, watch collector, a similar thought goes through their heads. Bring money, preferably bags of it. Watch collecting is one of those hobbies which most folks naturally assume is a rich man's game. Your average Joe in the street may not know the exact price for a quality watch but pretty much everyone is aware at some level that nice watches cost some serious coin. I'm willing to bet that if you ask any ten people to name a good watch, Rolex will get mentioned. Prod a bit and Omega, Longines, Cartier and Patek Philippe might be added as well. Do a little research and you will quickly realize that the prices for these goodies start in the thousands. Not shockingly, that's just too rich for most folks, especially in these post subprime crash days. So much for that idea, right? Well...not really.

    Watch collecting as a hobby has been around for a long time. I'm guessing it began when some kid got two watches for his graduation. Regardless of how it got started though, it's become a popular pastime for many people. Some folks collect watches as an investment, others for the sake of fashion. Many people have become collectors after inheriting an heirloom watch. For me, there are several levels of appeal to this hobby. At one level, I feel that while I may not be able to do anything about the passage of time, like give myself more of it for instance, I can at least measure it with precision. It isn't much in the way of control, admittedly, but at least I have a tool that lets me use what time I have efficiently. At another level, watches are occasionally built to memorialize some historical event, in effect becoming a little piece of history themselves. I love getting my hands on one of these pieces. Finally, and if for no other reason, I think watches are intrinsically interesting, especially when you realize what goes into them. The engineering in even the most basic of timepieces is quite remarkable. If you're with me so far and you want to play this game, here's the deal in a nutshell, there are loads of high quality watches out there that can be had on an ordinary human being's budget. The trick is to keep an open mind about brands and countries of origin.

    In the sections ahead, a series of watch reviews will be presented. The reviews are based on a blog that I started a few years ago called Ed's Corner. On the blog, in a mostly stream of consciousness style, are my photos and impressions of a number of poor man's timepieces that I have owned through the years. This book represents a cleaned up compilation of the Russian watch reviews on Ed's Corner. I hope you like it.

    Let's start with some of the basics. We watch collectors have a pretty well developed jargon to describe the details of our hobby. The rich, high society way of saying watch collector is horologist for starts. This is the Rolex collector's way of naming his or her watch collecting hobby. For somebody who is collecting at a more modest level, just plain watch collector will do. There are two basic types of watches, mechanicals and quartz. A quartz watch is technically any watch that uses a vibrating quartz crystal to regulate the timing of the watch. From a practical standpoint, that means a battery powered watch, be it the conventional kind where the battery gets changed every so often or the solar/kinetic variety where the battery lasts the life of the watch. The other kind of watch, mechanicals, are the ones where the watch is powered by a spring that either must be manually wound up

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