This is a high quality custom Marriage Watch.
A rare 1950 Molnija - Salut CSK-6 pocket watch movement in a new
44mm aviator style steel wrist watch case.
Watch is recently serviced, accurate, keeps time.
Comes on a new 22 mm good quality leather strap.
Unworn since completion.
In the early
1940s, as the German forces closed in on Moscow during World War II, over 1500
Soviet factories were evacuated to safety in the eastern part of Russia. One
such factory, the First State Watch Factory, was evacuated to Zlatoust, a city
east of the Ural mountains some 1600 kilometers from Moscow.
After the war, it
was decided that a watch factory should remain in the region. More than 100
factory laborers and over 30 engineers/technical workers were transferred from
the Zlatoust Watch Factory to Chelyabinsk, Russia, along with some heavy
machinery and equipment. The first phase of the factory development was
completed in late 1947, and on November 17, 1947, the Chelyabinsk Watch Factory
was complete. This factory would go on to specialize in the manufacture of
pocket watches, primarily marketed under the Molnija brand (Молния, meaning
"lightning").
Molnija pocket
watches were powered by a movement caliber dubbed "ЧК-6". These were
based originally on Swiss movement designs, namely the Cortébert caliber 620.
The first Molnija pocket watches were actually manufactured at the Second
Moscow Watch Factory in Q2-1947. (In the Soviet Union, the concept of
manufacturer competition did not exist, thus factories readily shared ideas,
concepts, parts, and technology.) These watches were clearly based on the
design of Salut pocket watches, also produced at the Second Moscow Watch
Factory. But before the end of the decade, ЧК-6 manufacturing was being
transferred to Chelyabinsk Watch Factory. The first known Chelyabinsk-produced
Molnija dates from Q4-1949. Production at the Second Moscow Watch Factory
continued for several years, but by the early 1950s, Chelyabinsk had assumed
all ЧК-6 caliber production.