Vostok Amphibia SE 150520S

Its been a while since my last blog post, in fact I have just realised that  I haven’t posted since 2015! This has been due to a combination of the fact that I haven’t really had much to blog about recently with very little in the way of incoming Russian watches. I now find myself in a position whereby I have three new watches from Meranom arriving in rapid succession. These are a Vostok Komandirskie 350503, the Vostok Amphibia SE 120360NK  and the watch featured in this blog post, the Vostok Amphibia SE 150520S. I was waiting for both special editions (SE = special edition) to come into stock and they did within days of each other. The Komandirskie I bought because I didn’t have this model with the new type bezel in my collection. The others, well I always try and pick up  a SE or two if I can. Back to the Vostok Amphibia SE 150520S, I will post about the other 2 watches in due course.

Vostok Amphibia SE 150520S

The Vostok Amphibia SE 150520S is a special edition for which there appears to be no “normal edition”.  It has only ever been a special edition, consisting of the two models mentioned below. The watch is presented on a faux leather cushion in a rather smart, black cardboard box with the word “Boctok” in the bottom right corner. The model I purchased is the SE 150520S which has a black dial with a white seconds subdial. Its sister model is the SE 150519LW model which has a grey dial with a black seconds subdial.

As far as I can work, out the Amphibia SE150 case looks to be the same as the Amphibia 090 “tonneau” case but with lug notches where the watch strap attaches. The the 090 case doesn’t have these and the watch strap is hidden behind the case. The dimensions appear to be 41mm across (without the crown) by 48mm long (with lugs) with a 22mm lug width. The body on this particular watch is brushed stainless steel and it features a polished stainless steel bezel and crown. If you have already read some of my other posts you might know that I am quite partial to 090 tonneau case and, yes, I really like the 150 case too. The case back is the Cosmonaut Gagarin version which is used on some of the other special editions, featuring the words “Special Series – Made in Chistopol” in Cyrillic.

The Vostok Amphibian SE 150520S is fitted with the Vostok 2426.12 self-winding movement which has 32 jewels. This not only drives the second subdial located at 10 o’clock but also drives a 24 hour hand. Rather like the 24 hour hand set up on the Komandirksie K-34, this can be used in conjunction with the stainless steel bezel, with 24 hour markings, to monitor a second time zone. This set up is also known as a GMT watch. The bezel is a new style which I have not seen on any other Vostoks before and the polished steel makes a nice contrast to the brushed steel body. There are so many bezel mods available now it is about time that Vostok upped their game with respect to their bezels. Maybe they have finally got the message.

The dial itself is black. Not the darkest black I have seen, it might even be a very dark grey. 12 o’clock and 6 o’clock are marked by numerals whilst the rest of the hour markers are simple white blocks. There are simple white minute indices around the edge of the dial, and the word “Boctok” appears inside 3 o’clock.  The dial also has “32 jewels”, something else written in Cyrillic and “200m” above the 6 o’clock point. The most interesting addition to this dial is the seconds subdial located inside the 10 o’clock marker. This is white in colour with numerals at the 15, 30, 45 and 60 second markers. The seconds subdial has one hand, the second hand, which is a rather dinky version of the minute hand. The minute, second and hour hands are what I would describe as square baton hands which are used on some of the other Vostok SE watches. They are the same as on my Vostok Amphibia SE120 for example. I like these hands but I would really like to see some paddle hands on some of these special editions. There is an extra hand on a GMT watch and, in this case, it is a fairly simple arrow pointer with only the tip lumed. The lume is pretty good, better than the standard watches, which one can see that I tried to capture in the photo below.

The Vostok Amphibia SE 150520S comes on a Vostok silicone strap with “anti-dust” treatment. I actually quite like these straps. They are quite comfortable. However all I have done so far is take the watch out of the box to take a few photos and it already seems to be picking up dust and lint. I think I may well swap this out for a nice dark brown or black leather strap, perhaps something with a rally feel. All in all this is a great looking watch and sits well on the wrist. I would perhaps like to see the Vostok Amphibia SE150 in some other colours other than the rather dull blacks, greys and whites of the two models available, but that is a minor gripe. It looks good and it is great to have a Vostok with a small complication and a different movement. Where else can one get an automatic, self-winding, GMT 24 hour watch for just $139?