Is your Raketa
original or reprinted?

Raketa is singled out by collectors as one of the most heavily faked names in Soviet watch collecting, and almost none of that faking involves counterfeit watches. It is dials — reprinted, invented and swapped — and the Big Zero is the epicentre.

Last reviewed July 2026 · Independent guide · Not affiliated with Raketa

Petrodvorets, and what Raketa actually is

Raketa watches came from the Petrodvorets Watch Factory outside what was then Leningrad, on a site with a manufacturing history stretching back to Peter the Great’s lapidary works. The Raketa name — Russian for “rocket” — was adopted in the early 1960s in the wake of Gagarin’s flight, and the factory went on to produce watches in quantities measured in the millions.

That scale is the essential context for everything else. When tens of millions of a thing were made and a great many survive, no rational counterfeiter builds a complete clone. The economics only support faking the part that carries the premium, and on a Raketa that part is the printed dial.

The factory still exists and relaunched under the Raketa name in the 2010s with new movements, which adds a further wrinkle: modern Raketas are genuine current products and should not be confused with the Soviet-era pieces, nor priced as them.

The Big Zero problem

The Big Zero is the most recognisable Raketa design: a clean dial with an oversized 0 where the 12 would normally sit. It has an origin story involving Soviet officialdom that may or may not be true, it photographs superbly, and it commands the largest premium of any common Raketa.

Every one of those attributes is an argument for reprinting it, and the market has responded accordingly. Big Zero dials are produced today in quantity, fitted to genuine Raketa movements in genuine Raketa cases, and sold as period originals. The watch is real. The dial is not.

Judge it mechanically. Look at the proportions of the zero against catalogue photographs, because reprints frequently get the stroke weight or the aperture shape subtly wrong. Then look at the minute track, which is where hand-laid reprints betray themselves, and then at the lume. A Big Zero with fresh even plots and dark crazed hands has been redone, however convincing the zero looks.

Fantasy dials and the catalogue test

Beyond reprints of real designs sits a second category: dials that Raketa never made at all. Space themes, submarine themes, dramatic military graphics and commemorative designs are printed onto blanks and fitted to genuine movements. These are fantasy pieces, and they are frequently sold with confident provenance stories attached.

The defence is the catalogue. Before assessing print quality, establish that the design existed. Raketa production is well documented by collectors, and a design that appears nowhere in the reference material almost certainly did not come from Petrodvorets. This test is stronger than any print analysis, because a well-executed fantasy dial can be beautifully printed and still be entirely invented.

Twenty-four hour models deserve a specific note. The 2628 is a genuine 24-hour movement whose hour hand takes a full day to complete a revolution, used in Raketa’s polar and 24-hour models. A dial printed with a 24-hour scale fitted over an ordinary 12-hour calibre is a fantasy build that will also simply tell the wrong time, which makes it one of the easier deceptions to catch.

What originality is worth

An honest Raketa with its original dial, even a slightly tired one, is worth meaningfully more than the same reference with a fresh reprint, and the gap widens with the desirability of the design. For a common dress model the difference may be modest. For a Big Zero or a documented 24-hour polar model it is substantial.

This is worth stating plainly because the reprint market is not hidden or ashamed. Reprinted dials are sold openly as restorations, and plenty of buyers knowingly and happily buy them. A reprinted Raketa on a sound movement is a perfectly decent watch to wear for very little money.

The mistake is only ever the price. Ask the seller directly whether the dial printing is factory original. If the answer is vague, assume it is not, and pay accordingly. Raketas are cheap enough that being wrong is inexpensive — but being wrong repeatedly, at Big Zero prices, is not.