A wonderful 15 jewel manual wind mechanical watch that shows the 1961 Russian Rouble. A revaluation of the Soviet currency occurred in 1961. It only affected the paper money and was designed to reduce the volume of currency in circulation. In this case old ruble paper money was revalued at one tenth of its face value.On the other side is the Emblem of the USSR, the State Emblem of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is a hammer and sickle on a globe depicted in the rays of the sun and framed by ears of wheat, with the inscription 'Soyuz Sovietskich Socialisticheskich Respublic' (CCCP) in Russian meaning Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) around the outside. At the top of the Emblem is a five-pointed star.
The rouble has been the Russian unit of currency for many centuries. The word "rouble" is derived from the Russian verb rubit, i.e., to cut. Historically, "rouble" was a piece of a certain weight cut off a silver grivna ingot, hence the name.
Later, the name "rouble" was applied to new Russian coins. Over the time the amount of precious metal in a rouble varied. Peter I standardized the rouble coin in 1704 to 28 gram of silver. While rouble coins were mostly silver, sometimes they were minted of gold, and some 19th century coins were platinum. The gold rouble introduced in 1897 was equal to 0,774235 g of gold. The Soviet ruble of 1961 was formally equal to 0.987412 g of gold, but the exchange for gold was never available to the general public. The ruble is no longer linked to the gold standard.
In the Soviet period, the ruble had its own name in all languages of the Soviet Union sometimes quite different from its Russian designation. All banknotes had their values printed in the languages of every Soviet Republic.
The face of this watch is quite rare and very nice being white gloss with the Soviet Hammer & Sickle in red at the top and black roman numerals markings. As usual there is a seperate second hand dial.
