The State quality mark of the USSR (, transliteration ) was the official Soviet mark for the certification of quality established in 1967.
Symbol
The sign was a pentagonal shield with a rotated letter K (from Russian word – quality) stylized as scales below the Cyrillic abbreviation for USSR.
History
It was used to mark consumer, production, and technical goods to certify that they met quality standards and, in general, to increase the effectiveness of the production system in the USSR.
The goods themselves or their packaging were marked, as was the accompanying documentation, labels or tags. Rules of its use were defined by GOST, an acronym for "state standard", section 1.9-67 (April 7, 1967).[1]
The right to use the sign was leased to the enterprises for 2–3 years based on the examination of the goods by the State Attestation Commission that should certify that the goods are of the "higher quality category". That is:
Obtaining the sign allowed the enterprises to increase the state controlled price for the goods by ten percent. When the sign was introduced it indeed suggested high quality of the goods but after some time a lot of Soviet-made goods were certified for the sign while their quality often remained below expectations of customers.