Vostok Amphibia Classic 170549

It is funny how one’s tastes change. When I first started buying Vostok Amphibia watches it the 420 case shape (I was inspired originally by Bill Murray’s character in The Life Aquatic). I soon decided that these looked a little bit small on my 7 ½ inch wrist so moved on to the slightly chunkier and larger cushion-shaped 710 “Ministry” case shape. After a while I got a bit fixated on buying 090 tonneau cases before stumbling upon the 150 case. I probably still couldn’t pick a favourite though. The 090 and 150 models have essentially the same shaped case. The 150 is the 090 with the hooded lugs milled out to produce a much more “classic” watch shape.

In December 2019 a new Amphibia case, the 170, started appearing for sale at various websites. I remember panicking and buying a couple on my phone on Christmas Day when I probably should have been doing other things! That is what fear of missing out does to you. You never know how long these models are going to be available for.

Vostok Amphibia 170

What is the Vostok Amphibia 170? Well it appears that the it is simply a Vostok Amphibia 150 with a brushed body and slightly repositioned lug holes, at least in some models, more of which later. Eventually the full range of 170s would be revealed to be 6 watches (at time of writing, April 2020) and I ended up buying one of each of them of them. I told myself that they were my Christmas presents to myself. Due to Covid-19 the sixth watch to complete the collection hasn’t arrived from Russia yet but. I will eventually get around to adding reviews of all of them and add links as and when.

The 170 range consists of:

170548 – Black sandwich dial, clean bezel, 2415.01 movement, black leather strap

170549 – Dark blue sandwich dial, clean bezel, 2415.01 movement, black leather strap – the watch reviewed here

170862 – Blue “Scuba Dude” dial with seconds sub-dial, “Batman” styled 24 hour bezel, GMT 2426.02 movement, black polyurethane strap

170863 – Black dial with seconds sub-dial, date window, “Batman” styled 24 hour bezel, GMT 2426.02 movement, black polyurethane strap

170864 – Black dial with date window, 60 minute red / black bezel, 2416 movement, black polyurethane strap

170865 -Blue dial with date window, 60 minute blue / black bezel, 2416 movement, black polyurethane strap

The first four watches are quite different but the last two share the same dial and just have different colour configurations.

Vostok Amphibia Classic 170549

As I mentioned above the Vostok Amphibia 170 is the same as the 150 but with a brushed case. I am therefore not going to go into to much detail about the body. I have reviewed the case here before with the 150348, SE 150l07 and SE 150520s. The case width is 41mm, lug to lug is 46mm and depth is 15mm. The lug width is 22mm, so this can take a decent sized strap. I like a 22mm strap. This model has a signed stainless steel, screw down crown and a “standard” Amphibia case back. This watch also features the usual domed plexiglass crystal. This watch features a “clean” stainless steel bezel, polished in contrast to the brushed body, which doesn’t really need to rotate but is actually bidirectional. The watch is waterproof to 200m.

The one major difference between the 150 and the 170, which I alluded to before, is that lug holes have been re-positioned in the 170. However, they do not seem to have been re-positioned in all models. Certainly in the model reviewed here, the 170549, they have been moved but in my 170854 they are in the same position as the 150s.

In the 150 the lug holes were quite oddly positioned very low down and quite far out in the lugs. This didn’t really matter if you were wearing the 150 on a Nato style strap, but with a classic two piece strap attached there is quite a large gap between the strap and case body which looks a bit peculiar and untidy. The lug holes in the 170549 have been moved in and up, so they are in a much more central position in the lug. Therefore, when a standard style strap is fitted, that gap is now closed, the strap sits much closer to the body. Everything now looks a lot more tidy, although it might make fitting a bracelet more difficult.

The dial of the 170549 has an attractive dark, sapphire blue colour with an eye-catching sunburst effect that shimmers nicely in the light. The dial is a sandwich dial comprising of two layers of metal. The hour indices are cut out of the top layer to reveal the lumed layer underneath. This is a bit unusual for Vostok, most have applied indices, and it gives the dial some depth and a bit of character. It is a pleasing nice design feature. The hour indices at 12, 3, 6 and 9 are inverted triangles, the remaining hour markers are simple bars. A little unusually the minute indices are not situated around the outside of the dial but are located inside the hour markers. The dial features the Cyrilic words “Boctok” under the 12 o’clock position, “31 jewels” and “Made in Russia” above the 6 o’clock position.

The hour and minute hands are stainless steel blunt, wide baton type hands with a small point at the tip. They are filled with a bright white lume that matches the lume of the sandwich dial. The seconds hand is the standard Amphibia style shape: a needle with a circular maker towards the tip. Normally the circular marker is lume-filled, in this case is it a open circle and the hand is not lumed at all. It also appears that the seconds hand is a little shorter than usual. Presumably this is a design feature chosen because the minutes markers are a little way inside the dial and the seconds hand does therefore not need to reach to the outside of the dial. According to Meranom the hour and minute hands, dial and strap are “imported”. It is a shame that the Chistopol Watch Factory doesn’t seem to have the capacity to make these excellent sandwich style, sunburst dials.

The Vostok Amphibia Classic 170549 came supplied with a blue leather, crocodile effect strap with contrast off-white stitching and a stainless steel clasp signed with a Vostok “B” logo. The strap appears relatively well made and I am sure it will wear in and soften with time. I am not really a big fan of blue watch straps, so this might find its way on to a brown or black leather strap soon.

I would say that this model is perhaps the cleanest of the six different 170 models. It shares a sandwich dial with the black-dialled 170548 (which, with a little imagination has a slight Panerai Marina Militaire feel to it). These are the two smartest watches in the range. The 170549 is perhaps the most dressy of the two and I think it is smart enough to sit under the cuff of a shirt and jacket and not look out of place. The clean bezel somehow gives the watch a quite a different character than the standard bezels and colourful bezel inserts. I am now tempted to try a clean bezel out on some of my other watches.

This Vostok Amphibia Classic 170549 was purchased from Meranom in February 2020 for around £78 / $97.

P.S. sorry about the lint and poor quality of the lug hole pictures 🙂