Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Incoming Poljot Strela

When I came back to work from lunch, I was informed by the security guard that a parcel was waiting for me. My Strela had made it's way from Germany to my office, in Mumbai, in just 5 days! Fantastic time, considering the shipping was free!

Here are some un-boxing pics:

Well packaged :)



It came with a stock black leather strap, but the quality wasn't to my liking, so I swapped it with a brown one from my old Lorus.
This Strela was a re-issue of the watch worn by Alexei Leonov during the first ever space walk on 18th March, 1965. It has the proven Poljot 3133 caliber, which replaced the old 3017 caliber, present on the original watch.
As you can see, this is a limited edition series, with mine being no 93/500 :)
The quality of the dial took me by surprise. I've heard stories of poor quality control on Poljot watches, but I have to say, the dial seems really well built. The case is 38mm across, which is the perfect dress watch size for me.


The literature that came with it mentioned that the accuracy is about -10 to +20 sec a day, but I'll only be able to comment on that once it's spend some time on the wrist.
It's sad that Poljot is no longer manufacturing watches, but there are still plenty of new old stocks out there to keep watch enthusiasts like me happy.
For more info on Poljot, here's a link to their wiki page.

7 comments:

Aditya said...

That is a beautiful watch!

Did you buy from Irina Maier? She provides excellent service. I bought my six Molnija 3603s from her.

Aditya

Bio said...

That's an excellent guess! You're very observant.
Yes I did buy it from Irina. I had also bought a Vostok Europe Gaz-14 from her, in January last year. She's a great person to deal with and her website's prices are the lowest that I have come across.
I would definitely recommend them :)
Speaking of Molnija, I was having a look at their pocket watches yesterday. Some of them seem quite interesting ;)

Anonymous said...

Poljot made many excellent watches and this Strela variant is one of my favourites... also 38mm is really comfortable for a chrono, congratulationa!
BTW the movemnt is usually very accurate, both my 3133 Poljot chronographs are around +5s/day when worn. ;-)

CCCP

Bio said...

Thanks CCCP! I really like the Strela re-issues, including the black dial, with the paddle hands. (Hopefully I'll be able to get my hands on that too someday)
Great to know the movement is accurate. I haven't gotten around to time it, but I'm not so worried if it's a few seconds off. It's got a lot of other things working for it :)
-Dhruv

Aditya said...

So how is it going on day 6? Is the Strela keeping good time?

Aditya

Bio said...

He Aditya,
Well, the truth is that I bought that watch to wear on a special occasion. I'm getting engaged (formally) on the 1st of Aug and so it'll be another two weeks before I can strap that on my wrist.
I'll probably be doing a one week accuracy test and post the results here.
Thanks for asking though.
Cheers.
Dhruv

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Address:
6B/4A, Sangeeta Apartments
Ground Floor. Juhu Road.
Santacruz West.
Mumbai - 400049

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