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

Especially the parts facing the human skin can pick up interesting collections of dirt over time, giving rise to microbial ecosystems

This watch has an automatic Citizen 6000 movement with 21 jewels

The cleaned watch head, as seen from the bottom

Dirty bracelet

Removing the bracelet from a watch is easier with the right tools

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