How to clean a vintage watch

Rediscovering old beauty under layers of dirt

Aug. 23, 2020 - Willem L. Middelkoop

This week I was cleaning my closet when I found an old watch. It came from my grandfather’s house. It looked like it had an adventurous live, full of wear and tear. I recognised that it had an automatic mechanical movement. Upon picking it up it almost instantly started running again. I wondered how cool it would be if I would gently clean it.

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The cleaned watch head, as seen from the bottom

Citizen Automatic, 21 jewels, 6000, 4-601084-Y

The rear of the watch, showing various numbers and markings

Wear and tear is a great thing on a watch: it communicates the story of adventurous wrist time

Dirty bracelet

The watch back on the wrist: cleaned and running!

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