1Mchz Sputnik: Back Cover Story
This timepiece is long awaited one, as I have been hunting for this black Sputnik for quite long period of time, and finally this is landing with surprise.
The Sputnik watch, made by 1st Moscow Watch Factory (1Mchz), to commemorate the successful launch of the world's first satellite - Sputnik in 1957. This watch model was released in two colors, both black and white are highly collectible and usually expensive, when I say expensive it means over 100 USD as that's the not usual price point for commonly found soviet watches.
The design of this watch in 50s was ahead of its time, the globe is located in the center on the dial, and the indices are designed with rocket shape at 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8,10, 11 hour marks. The second hand is particularly interesting, with the red dot (representing sputnik) orbiting the globe (earth).
The surprising part is not the watch itself (almost all Soviet watches collectors know about this watch), but the inscriptions found in the back cover of it when I received it, since the seller never show the back cover in his selling lot.
Again I couldn't read hand written Cyrillic completely, and with the help of Valeriy, here's the full inscriptions -
Трубавину В.П.
от маршала Советского Союза
Конева И.С.
Германия
19.02.1962
Translated in English -
Trubavin V.P.
from Marshal of the Soviet Union
Konev I.S.
Germany
02/19/1962
So we just need to search Конева И.С. and the exact matching shows up immediately -
Ivan Stepanovich Konev
These few paragraphs from the Wikipedia page are particular interesting since those information can relate to the inscriptions found in the back cover of Sputnik watch.
In October 1943, the Steppe Front was renamed the 2nd Ukrainian Front , Konev remained its commander and in October - December 1943 he carried out the Pyatikhat and Znamenskaya operation , and in January 1944 - the Kirovograd operation . Konev's grandiose success as a commander was the Korsun-Shevchenko operation , where for the first time after Stalingrad a large enemy group was surrounded and defeated. For skillful organization and excellent leadership of the troops in this operation, on February 20, 1944, Konev was awarded the military rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union.
From June 1960 to August 1961 and from April 1962 - in the Group of Inspectors General of the USSR Ministry of Defense . In August 1961 - April 1962, during the Berlin crisis , he was commander-in-chief of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany.
So the back cover inscription of the Sputnik watch matches exactly the timeline of events found in Wikipedia page. The watch is most probably awarded by Konev I.S. to Trubavin V.P during 1962. You can see the watch case has been seen with some serious usage (losing the chrome plated) and I will just preserve the watch as is instead of changing anything on it.
As the Commander who leads the front line, his quote "The strength of the Soviet Army and Navy lies in the leadership of the party, in inseparable connection with the people" is undeniable.
Some other information to read if you are interested -
a witness of the history.
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