# Question On A Curious Crystal



## basemetalbezel (Apr 2, 2014)

Hello to all,

This is my first post here. I have owned only a few Russian watches in my time but the one I presently have is a puzzle. I apologize for not posting pictures but I didnâ€™t think to write to you all until after I sent the watch off for service. At any rate what I am asking about would be difficult to photograph.

I have what was represented to me was a Raketa pilotâ€™s watch. It has a day/date at three oâ€™clock, with a smile-face aperture from 11 to 1 with what I thought were city names but are probably days of the week (everything is in Cyrillic). There is a smile face aperture from 5 to 7 with the years. Basic three-hand movement, nothing fancy on the 12-hour dial beyond the Roman numerals.

When I bought the watch I was told that there were tiny graphs etched onto the crystal, and that a pilot could read them under a blue light in the cockpit. I accepted this story even though I couldnâ€™t see a thing. FWIW I only paid $20 for it which isnâ€™t a hose job even for a Russian watch.

Anyway, just before I put it in the sack to go to my mechanic I looked at the crystal and, behold, I could discern tiny Cyrillic letters in two groups along the lower third of the crystal. I donâ€™t know if these were etched on the inside or outside so I wrote a note to my mechanic to NOT POLISH THE CRYSTAL!

Has anyone out there ever seen this kind of crystal before? What information do these graphs typically contain? Is this a common feature? Any clue as to what this watch might be worth? Thanks in advance.


----------



## chris.ph (Dec 29, 2011)

Take it to an 80s disco and take some photos for us to see, it sounds really imteresting


----------



## Lampoc (Oct 31, 2010)

It'll be a Raketa perpetual calendar like this:










I've had a couple but never heard of anything being etched onto the crystal? $20 is a decent price for one. You see them on ebay quite regularly where good ones will fetch around $40 to $60.

The pilot and "blue light in cockpit" thing is unfortunately a load of rubbish


----------



## PC-Magician (Apr 29, 2013)

With it being a Russian Watch a mechanic seems appropriate to service it.

Tough as old boots a lot of Russians.


----------

