Raketa: Atomic IceBreaker Lenin 20 Years (Frankenstein)

 It's been a while I didn't write anything on this blog, laziness is the main factor.

Recently there are many of such watch model (Raketa: Atomic IceBreaker Lenin 20 years) floating around on *bay but almost all of them are Frankenstein, usually you don't see this watch on sales often since it is very rare. Therefore here I would like to share about "How to identify the fake dial" quickly.

Fake (image from *bay)

Original

Without comparing the dial print side by side, the Frankenstein can look "genuine". Once you zoom in and compare, I would say the easiest and quickest way to spot the different is the hour scale, you can easily spot the number 4 is obviously different. Another obvious different is the red split second scale, the number 1 and 5 are easy takeaways. You can check the visual comparison below and make quick judgement.

Anyhow you can find more subtle differences and I will leave that to you, usually that is the simplest way for me to quickly tell whether the watch is original or fake.

Dial aside, there is also a mistake done on caliber / mechanism / movement on the original watch which is puzzling for many collectors, however that is story for another day.

Cheers :-)