jumanji wrote:
Hello everyone,
I'm curious about Vostok watches. Friend of mine showed me one yesterday, and it looked very alike to.... Breitling...
He mentioned the fact, that Breitling bought that company and stared making them based on breitling engines... (something like Seiko did with Pulsar)
Is that true?? I can't find any approriate info on the net, that's why I'm asking here.
Regards,
M
I'm curious about Vostok watches. Friend of mine showed me one yesterday, and it looked very alike to.... Breitling...
He mentioned the fact, that Breitling bought that company and stared making them based on breitling engines... (something like Seiko did with Pulsar)
Is that true?? I can't find any approriate info on the net, that's why I'm asking here.
Regards,
M
I've owned a Vostok Europe watch myself and it was OK for a budget auto.
When talking about these watches, you have to be careful of the distinction between "Vostok" and "Vostok Europe". Vostok is/was a purely Russian/Soviet concern and used to produce fairly low quality, predominantly manual-wind watches for the Russian market, and mainly the Russian military. The quality is not great (they use plated base-metal cases a lot of the time), and they look very Soviet in styling.... so that's either a good thing or a bad thing depending on what you like! Vostok Europe is (pretty obviously!) related to the parent company, but they are made in one of the former Soviet republics (I think), and are constructed to a much higher standard using SS cases, etc, for mainly the Western (and by that I mean "European") market. Everything they make is automatic and generally speaking the quality is OK, especially for the price range. They like their display backs (calm down Roff!
) and every piece is supposedly limited edition, although it should be noted that they class the same watch head just on a different strap as a different limited edition run, so they are not as exclusive as you may think at first glance! Where they fall down is in the details - e.g. the hands are not great, sometimes the lume on the dial looks different to the lume on the hands, the straps are distinctly ordinary, the movements don't have hack seconds, they use mineral glass not sapphire, the movements are not the smoothest and are not exactly innovative..... just the odd day/night indicator or non-adjustable GMT hand, etc, etc.
I went through a phase of buying a few Russian watches a couple of years ago, and while the VE was by far and away the best of the bunch, I still sold it very quickly. In summary - not bad for the money, but I'd recommend saving your money and putting it towards a Breitling!
And no, Breitling most certainly DO NOT own them!
