ELEKTRONIKA 1 SOVIET LED 1978
When the LED story was near extinction the Russians wanted to show off and introduced their first LED watch - the Elektronika I. As always they were a few years behind the "competition" however most watches were for internal inland use to show their citizens that their engineerial brains can also produce microelectronics (who would care that it was already obsolete). Pictured in this review is the most common version of the watch which is very, very similar to the Swiss Zodiac LED. The module with 24hour display was produced inhouse and shown below are 3 generations of the 2651 module. The display on the 1st (left) had wirebonds soldered MANUALLY !!! and the display cover cut out by hand. I find technological similarities with the Orient Touchtron so it is possible that the USSR acquired some outdated ideas from Japan.
Based on the production dates printed on the quartz crystals it is very surprising that a LED watch was produced far longer than anyone could imagine. IMO... faaaar beyond reason what makes this watch the longest produced LED ever - first generation 1979, second 1984, the third generation from the late 1980's has an empty quartz tube cavity and had been fitted with a tiny tuning-fork quartz mounted on the front of the substrate. PS. This Elektronika was acquired in mint condition with a corresponding sales receipt indicating that it had been sold in Moscow in... 1990 (!!!). The clasp is stamped with a price of 6.50rubles. Such an obligatory (not "suggested") retail price had to be stamped on almost every product in the East Block to prevent resellers from adding margins and earn additional capitalistic profits :)
Keywords: elektronika led
Market value: 25-150$ (condition, box)