Luch - Луч

Dials

 See below some of the geniune dial/hands combination. This should give you an idea what an authentic 'ultra-thin' 2209 luch looks like 

The hour markers have been cut into the dial and the hands are simple, thin, gold batons. The second hand is shorter than the minute hand.

 This dial/hands combination has got tall roman numerals in a gold case. The hour and minute hands are golden but the second hand is red and shorter than the minute hand

This dial/hand combination also uses tall numeral numbers bin in a chrome case. The hands are all black and the second and minute hand have the same length. There is a slight chance that the cases are not original. They could have been gold plated but up until today I was not able to find them in any catalog to confirm this.

This combination uses short roman numerals. This combination are believed to be newer watches and none will have the Minsk movement. All hands are black and the second hand is longer than the minute one. Again there is a sligh chance that the gold hands are not original since no catalog or original picture at this stage is able to confirm the original hands.

This combination has colored dials. These are generally with arabic numbers, and sometimes with the short roman numerals. Again, these would be newer watches without the Minsk movement. These should have thick hour and minute hands with a thin white line down the middle and long seconds hands (hard to tell on the watch to the right, but the hour and minute hands are exactly like the one on the left…they just blend into the dial of the watch).

The watches with the new logo (top one) should have the beam logo on the movement than the pentagon one. If you find a pentagon one than the movement might have been swap.

Can you see the difference? Much longer, thinner, and closer together on an authentic dial. The real dial on the right or bottom (depends on screen resolution) also just has so much more precision and finesse that the fake reproduction dials lack. After viewing a few of these, the difference will be stark and you’ll never mistake a reproduction for an original. Some of these Soviet reproduction dials (like the Volna or Sputnik) practically require a magnifying glass to parse the differences, but not these.

Note: A big thank you to Dashiell who provided the images and the information

Movement Logo

1962 - 1975 М Ч З = Minsk Watch Factory	1975 - 1980 Luch = Beam	Late Sixties- 1990 SU' = Suviet Unio

Case

How do destinguish the old from the new case. The old case is on the right which has more rounded lugs. The new case on the left has more flattened or cut off lugs. The old cases usually suffer from gold-plating loss and hence watchmakers/restorer swap them for a newer one. I would still prefer the original one but other collectors might have different preferences. There might also been a transition time where the old movement were put into new cases but that is just a guess and could be wrong.

Even the back is different between the brands. Luch backs usually have straight brushing(right or bottom pic, (depends on screen resolution)) and Poljot/Vympel usually have radial brushing on the rear cover 

 Paperwork / Watch Passport

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On the day of purchase the new owner received a watch passport (paperwork) that provides proof of purchase, general information (see pics for explanation) about the watch. It was also a certificate of warranty with the conditions described on the back of the passport. On the far left side of the passport (missing here) is a Ticket n1 part, which was required for any warranty repair. It is very rare to get a watch with paperwork especially if the watch is in a good condition as well.

 

For more details please refer to the following thread

 

 

 Note: A big thank you to Dashiell who provided some of the images and the information