Under the hood of a Zaria 2609K

[Bloodtkr]

The price was $38 and I liked the two tone, however it won't stay wound up. Looks like the spring is worn. The bracelet is very cheap also.

[Mister Mike]

Ahh, so now we finally have confirmation that "2609K" is Russian for "Chinese Standard Movement!" Oh, well. Thanks for clearing up this mystery -- I was wondering what was in these new 17 Jewel Zarias.

[Bloodtkr]

So this is a Chinese movement? I e-mailed the seller about returning it. He will pay return shipping also. Dan

[Mister Mike]

That's good. I'm guessing Leonid? He's a good guy, but Russian movements are way better than CSMs (some are OK, but they're a crapshoot). Keep your 3105 Zaria, that's a quality watch that should last forever.

[Bloodtkr]

Thanks Mister Mike, Yes, all from lean. I have the white and black 3105 Zaria's.

[sci]

Zaria were making their nice 2009B movement, seems that they killed it even before the Poljot 31xx :(

[Bloodtkr]

Thanks Mister Mike, Yes, all from lean. I have the white and black 3105 Zaria's.

Sorry, I meant Leon. I only had 8 cups of coffee at 0400.

[JRMTactical]

It's heartbreaking to see Chinese crap in an otherwise nice watch. It makes one afraid for the Russian watch industry...3133's gone, 2609K (Chinese crap)...what's next?

[Seele]

The CSM varies tremendously in material and build quality, ranging from excellent to... well... train wrecks found in those eBay "penny dreadfuls" built by some faceless Joe Bloggs in his garage out of bits pulled from dead watches out of a barrel full of them, or so it seems. After all the CSM is by and large considered to be at the end of its life anyway.

The quality and performance of a CSM-powered watch is thus largely dependent on who actually built the movement. So it also means it is dependent on how much Penza paid for the movements, who they bought them from, and where the suppliers sourced them from. A recently arrived Vitsebsk-built Vympel with a bit of age has a Shanghai-built CSM with the Vitsebsk logo marked on the main bridge, this indicates it was especially built by Shanghai Watch Co for Vitsebsk, it needs repairs but I feel its quality should be quite good and very likely to be comparable to vintage Shanghai-branded ones. I have no idea who built and supplied the CSMs found in these Zarias and the late model Luches though.

Even if Zarias and Luches put the best quality movements - think A. Lange and such - in their watches, it is still besides the point: both companies have good catalogues of high-quality movements but they elected to can them, thus missing the opportunity to expand as movement makers, supplying them internationally, especially when ETA is reducing supply. Poljot did well in the past in this business, just off the top of my head I can think of brands such as Paul Garnier, Henri Gireaux, Lourin Perrard, Timetone, and El Dorado watches using Poljot movements of various types.

[pmwas]

Maybe the K stands for China actually (the Russian name for China actually begins with a K :) ). Well... what can I say - the standard Chineese movement is not a badly designed machine, quite the contrary, but the quality is often dreadful, unfortunately...