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A collector’s item? The Russian Vostok Century Time Luminous CT 8 Automatic 2416 - 31 jewels
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 What is so special about this Millenium watch?
All pictures by Nondisputandum exept when mentioned
Nothing special when you compare it to digital ‘throw ‘em away when they fail’ clocks.
But this is a rare (fairly new) time-accurate automatic Russian watch from the factory that has build the USSR military watches since the second world war. Divers, pilots and troopers had to trust these (peacefull) pieces of military craftsmanship.
There is little or no information available about this a-typical Century Time.
There are still some new Vostok Century Times watches for sale but not one CT 8 Luminous.
The “like it or hate it”-look differs because it illuminates in the dark and a crafty solid brass bezel gives an out of the order appearance. Characteristics rarely seen on a Vostok (If at all?)
Now tell me! Is this cheap eastern-European ‘ersatz’ or something special. You be the judge!
Irina Maier from Heidenheim (Russian Watches Distribution Germany) wrote me on watchuseek.com: ‘The Century Time series was produced at the beginning of the century by Vostok Capital Production. It was kind of joint venture between Vostok and an American company. However the activities of that Vostok department ended in 2004 and since then no watches have been produced. Century Time is definitely not produced any longer.’
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This page navigation:
It glows green
The Russian Hulk
Now you know why the Russian military are never never afraid in the dark |
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If you know more about the Vostok CT 8 luminous:
Please ad your comment on WATCHUSEE or RTFWATCHES or mail me.
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Who can answer some questions? Things I would like to know about Vostok & the Vostok CT 8 Luminous!
- What US company organized a joint venture with Vostoc for the Century Time line?
- How many othe models of the CT came on the market?
- Besides the Breitling’ish looking CT’s, are there any other specials like this CT8 Illuminous?
- What technique is used to have the CT8 glow so vividly in the dark?
- Is the same (fluorescence?) technique used on other (Vostok) watches?
- How many copies of this CT 8 Illuminous exist? Anyone out there who has on in his/her collection?
- Does Vostok (not Europe Vostok) have other models whith some kind of “high tech” in it?
- Any other historical facts about this CT 8 Luminous?
- Are there other CT 8 models?
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Vostok related websites:
I can not assure you that these are all trustworthy. Inform me if there are rugue websites in this list. Thank you!
First visit the Vostok watchmakers homepage.
An absolutely trustworthy shop
to buy Russian watches is www.wereldhorloges.nl. (Same company as russwatch.nl)
They do not have english pages yet but no need to lear Russian. Dutch will do ;-) Mail ‘em in english and they answer within’ 24 hours. They offer each client a (free) special tool (see below: picture of band reduction) to replace a bit, inscrew pins or size the watch band.
Note this - Do not mistake:
Please do not mistake a far more expensive Europe Vostok for a genuine Russian Vostok. These European Vostiks are Lithuanian. The factory incorporates the 2416 mechanism in their more Euro styled cases. They cost about 3 times the price of a genuine Russian Military counterpart. But they look more common on the Western market. It’s a matter of taste and authenticity.
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- Official CT 8 picture
More pictures:
Observe the detail >>>
Users manual:
Download the complete manual for the military self winding Vostoks in pfd.
Find more manuals: Russianwatch.net
Change the date:
Fix the watch crown in the position “setting hands” and then move hands clockwise to the position “12 o’clock” counter-clockwise to “8 o’clock” by rotating the watch crown.
Change the date for more than one day:
Move the hours hand counter-clockwise to “8 o’clock” and then again clockwise to the position “12 o’clock”. The date-of-the month shifts one day per each cycle of moving hands within the range “12-8-12”.
Technical specifications:
- Movement:
24 mm caliber
5.7 mm heigt
- Mean daily rate
–10 to + 30 s/day
- «Water resistant» or «Водонепроницаемые» means that you can wash yourself, when there is no splashing of water under pressure. No shower, no bath, no swim.
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How to shorten the band of a Vostok Century Time
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To shorten the watch band / bracelet, you need to withdraw 2 small metal stifts.
You’ll need a very fine screwdriver and a pincet (Your scarfree Leatherman will do 2 ;-)
From the inside of the band / belt, you can carefully push the stifs out of their place. Use the pincet to pull them carefully out. Don’t loose ‘em! Store ‘em safely. You only need one stift after all, so keep the second in case you need to do a repair. Though this watch is known to serve you for more than a decade,... and longer.
Once the two clips are removed, be cautious to lift the segment and withdraw it carefully. Don’t pull because it won’t come loose this way. Lift it out of it’s place preserving an angle of roundabout 45°. You will notice on the picture above small gaps in the inner connectors. That’s the direction to disconnect the elements. Handle with care.
Easy as dell to place them back together? Yea, grab a clawhammer. Slide the stift roughly halfway the segment and hit it with all your strenght. Slam three or four times more to experiënce that this is Russian quality. But perhaps you could begin with the pincet and carefully slide the pin back in place. No garantee, no complaints accepted if you fuc|<-up this beautifull CT 8 Luminous model,... that you shall probably not find for sale anymore as far as I could explore. So in fact i’m a dirty rotten SOB explaining this all to you.
But perhaps your purchased Vostok looks similar and this might be a help after all ;-)
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The pictures below were not taken by me and do not come from my Vostok CT 8.
But they do show the (identical) famous Bostok 2416 Automatic mechanism.
For obvious reasons, i’ll not remove the cover unless I really have to. And because there’s no battery to replace, probably never. Don’t forget that this is a water resistant military watch. I prefer it to stay that way.
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This is the only other picture of a Vostok CT 8 Luminous that I found on the Web
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Motivation:
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You might wonder why i took the time to take several pictures of this watch, hence even of the box it was wrapped in, place ‘em online and invest several hours to make this page as informative as possible. It had a good reason. At the time I was awaiting the delivery of this Russian tank, sorry, watch, time was moving ahead and within the next 72 hours I had to finish a thesis (scription - in Dutch - proposing new techniques handling emmergency psychiatry) for my latest studies. So I worked all around the clock for several days, sleeping between 04.30 and 6 AM, living on whateven my wife supported me with (Icecream, chilli pepper chips and a hot meal a day.) Fortunately that my active children (one has my electric guitar) were on holiday with their friends. To get some relief, I drove my Yamaha Virago each day to the postal office to see if my package had arrived. That was perfect for the blood circulation in my but’n’legs. This webpage is the other relaxation I allowed me te have. It helped me to get focussed again and than move on to the scription. I simply hope that I have not mixed up information between this page and that scription. Imagine: “ The green-light Vostok intervention in the Psychiatric Emergency Room.” An awesome title but probably not good enough to pass the evaluation! More about me.
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Brilliant software. Undisputably good.