[lightdot]

Molnija wasn't a ripoff, Soviets purchased the design and the initial tooling from Cortebert.

This particular Cortebert's calibre is indeed somewhat famous for being used by Rolex in 1940's (as cal. 618).

It's a fine movement in itself and Molnijas are not bad at all, both in their original 15 jewel variant (from 1947 to early 1960's) or as a later 18 jewel one. I would just avoid the specimens from 1990's or later.

I especially like the 18 jewel Molnijas from early 1960's that were still decorated with Geneva stripes and had a microadjuster. Molnijas became more utilitarian later on.

[aeturnum]

Thank you for the correction! I uncritically took my story from a webpage on soviet watch history. I also didn't realize that the design was a shared ancestor of both rolex and molnija - I thought molnija had copied rolex. Such are the pitfalls of being an amateur.

I've found that most soviet watch brands decay in quality as you get into the 90s. If they don't, they start to match the price points of their western counterparts.

[lightdot]

It's quite understandable, accurate and detailed on-line information about Molnijas is a bit scarce...