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Vintage Alpina Silver Case Treatment: Yes or No?

Hoe

By Hoe
in Watch Repairs Help & Advice

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Hoe Member

Hoe

Posted
Posted

Dear Watchmakers

I am planning an overhaul of this gorgeous, vintage Alpina wristwatch and I would like to hear your opinions on how to treat the case before I start doing anything.

The front section of the case has some sort of dark colour applied to give contrast to the engravings. I am worried about this colour to come off and therefore damage the appearance of the watch. In fact I am sure it will come off... There are already small sections with colour loss. I don’t think I will be able to recolour.

The case material – at least the case back – seems to be 0.800 Silver.

Options I considered (no. 1 is my favorite so far):

  1. Do nothing and let the case as it is. Clean it gently by hand with a brush.

  2. Ultrasonic cleaner treatment

  3. Silver cleaning treatment to make it shine again

What would you do? Does anybody know what this colour is?

Best wishes

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20200803_145926-2.jpg

20200803_150103-2.jpg

watchweasol Distinguished Member

watchweasol

Posted
Posted

Hello and welcome to the forum Hoe,   I would approach this remembering its age and detail,  Do not polish the bezel but clean the rest of the case so that the colouration of the bezel contrasts with the rest of the case as it did when new,  but be sympathetic its a beautiful little watch so great care must be taken .

KarlvonKoln Distinguished Member

KarlvonKoln

Posted
Posted

Welcome! That is a pretty Alpina.  I like its style.  I too would be very careful about polishing it up at all.  If you decide to though, there are silver polishing cloths you could use.  I wouldn't use anything stronger than those, if at all, and I'd use a very gentle touch with them.

You could put a polishing cloth on the rounded end of a little paintbrush handle and just sort of "spot polish" the vine patterns and border.  That might work.  But I'm still leaning toward leaving it be.

Marc Distinguished Member

Marc

Posted
Posted

What you have got is called Niello which is a surface decoration technique for silver. Google Niello and you will get lots of info but here's a link that may be useful.

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Hoe Member

Hoe

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Thanks Marc for bringing up the term Niello, fantastic. I remember seeing pocket watches decorated like this.

There are YouTube videos about this technique. It seems to be quite tough at least when it is new.

  • 2 weeks later...
Hoe Member

Hoe

Posted
  • Author
Posted

To finish this topic, I used special Silver polishing cloths to clean the case parts, today. It is cheap and the result is fabulous. The contrast between Niello and Silver is stronger. Furthermore I treated the crystal with Polywatch. The watch looks much better, now.

Polishing_Silver.jpg

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