Watch polishing
To polish a watch is not something to do lightly. Traces of years, maybe decades of usage can all be removed.
Some will say that with polishing you will remove the character, the ‘heritage’ of the watch. It can have a diminishing effect on the economical value of the watch. Others will say that it is a great thing to have an old watch look like new. As if they are the first owners. It can be a plus if that one big scratch disappears.
Polishing is a catch-all phrase for various kinds of treatment of the metal surfaces of the watch. Also grinding is a kind of polish resulting in fine parallel lines.
Watch polishing is mostly understood as rubbing the metal so long till it glances. The highest grade of glance being the so called ‘black polish’. It is named as such because this treatment results in a surface dat doesn’t scatter the light towards the eye. No color will be observed and the object seems black. The light will only reflect in one direction and if you manipulate the object so that all the light will reach the eye the object you will see a white glance.
But a watch polished entirely to a ‘black polish’ is not necessarily a beautiful watch. First of all ‘Black polish’ will show all the imperfections immediately. And only in contrast with other surfaces a ‘black polish’ will stand out and becomes nice to look at. So often watches are polished matt or have a nice ‘sundial’ finish on parts.
Not all cases can be polished.
If a watch is covered with a thin layer of high-quality metal over a softer base-metal, that layer would disappear or get damaged in the polishing process.