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Date Posted:19:50:23 01/09/06 Mon In reply to:
Jim Mills
's message, "Re: 1901 Veritas gr 214" on 15:36:36 01/09/06 Mon
The discolored crystal is a plastic replacement from several decades ago. The original would have been glass. The early replacement "unbreakable" plastic crystals were not chemically stable, and usually turned yellow or green, or sometime brown. Sometimes the process of their decomposing/discoloring/shrinking also causes the metal hands to rust. Newer plastic crystals don't have this unpleasant side-effect. But, a glass crystal is best. A good watchmaker may have some "new old-stock" crystals to replace it with. There is only one place that I know of that was making new crystals, quite good quality, but had very slow service - Cazadero Crystals in California http://users.ap.net/~cazadero/index.html Getting rid of the old plastic crystal and replacing it will improve the value, and help preserve the watch.
Careful pressing on the gears and jewels! - you don't want to inadvertently bend or break something. Probably what happened is that you dislodged a gear that was stuck in some gummy residue, which is why it probably started to run again. The 3-in-1 oil is almost certainly better than nothing, although I can't vouch for it as a medium or long-term solution. These old watches were built solidly and ran almost flawlessly under the harshest of conditions. With a qualified watchmaker working on it, it can be made to run pretty much as well today as the day it was new.
