Most all of the watches sent to us for work have serious issues that are addressed with the cases such as lids that are ripped off, missing hinges, dents so bad the lid will not close, missing and worn silver inner lips that will not allow the lid to stay closed, and on and on besides being just downright filthy inside and out. Very, very rarely are they are as simple as just needing a nice hand polish.
Another serious issue that is addressed with dipping the cases is 150 years of debris that is jammed in the case hinge area is floated out. This montage of dirt, coal dust, horsehair, and God knows what is detrimental to the health of the movement when it is left in place as it will work loose and wind up in the inner movement mechanism over time and is inaccessible to hand cleaning unless one cares to remove the case hinges and that defies logic if they are not broken.
We do apply jewelers rouge very lightly to the outsides with a clean lambswool wheel but it does not remove any precious metal and simply imparts a shine while merely concealing some of the very finest scratches, not actually removing them. Plenty are left in plain sight for character .
The heart and soul of the watch is the movement and when it is all said and done protecting that delicate mechanism from dirt and harm is why the case is there in the first place and it needs to be functioning properly and to be clean to accomplish this.
We put many hours into completely disassembling, correctly cleaning and oiling the movements with the best products while replacing worn parts with correct parts, and please don't tell me you think the movement is best left dirty too. Dirt is the enemy of these delicate timepieces and only a fool winds and runs a dirty watch if he cares for it at all.
When the key wind watches, which is our primary focus, fell out of favor in the 1880's they were largely tossed on the junk pile, melted for their silver, or given to the grandchildren to play with while Dad admired his new highly jeweled stem wind railroad grade beauty. Their condition often reflects this.
By and far most all the watches with a nice warm gentle patina of tarnish that you would admire have had a very similar thorough treatment in the past when they were dug out of Uncle Williams sock drawer of mementos when he died 50 years ago and were presented to a watchmaker in dreadful condition to restore for the family.
I suppose some people may find dirty non running watches with ripped off dented lids and cracked dials to be romantic wallhangers but I don't feel that I need to apologize for the work that we do restoring them to a correctly functioning usable state. I didn't mean to put myself in a position to defend it either. I simply was remarking on a rather neat trick to get rid of tarnish without abrasive polishing techniques.
