FSU Horology?

[Dave Wilkinson]

Perhaps a little inapropriate on a camera forum- but not a 'what to buy' plea!. As an enthusiast of mechanical time pieces, I notice on the 'Bay - a few sellers of fsu camera gear also offer watches - varying in price from very cheap to quite expensive. Often tempted, I wonder if the Russian watch industry was/is the same 'hit and miss' affair as the photographic sector?, any one indulged?.
Dave.

 

[Warren T.]

Hi Dave,

A few years ago, there was a wave of inexpensive FSU watches available on Ebay and other Internet sources. During that time, I purchased a few Poljot brand mechanical watches. I liked the Aviator series. The original Poljot Aviator series were Russian clones of the Fortis design, but their quality control was suspect. Since that initial wave, the fad died down, and Poljot moved a little more upscale (in terms of pricing). I have not read anything recently about their quality control or reliability because the WIS world has moved on.

The movements on my examples are reasonably accurate and reliable, but I wouldn't pay the prices that they are demanding for them today.

first pic: Poljot Aviator Chrono, Poljot 3133 movement(Valjoux 7734 clone), manual wind
2nd pic: Poljot Aviator, Pojot 2614 movement, manual wind

--Warren