What's this watch (City), movement, and best course of action for repair?

[SwitchAndLever]

 

So today I went thrifting and picked up this, what I thought was a, beautiful watch. It wasn't running there, and the state is as obvious rather poor, but it spoke to me so for $2 I couldn't really pass it up. 

After getting it open (with the superglue and nut on the back method, as it was STUCK), the movement actually looks in pretty decent shape. I nudged the balance and it ran for like three seconds, and then stopped. I nudged one of the wheels and it actually started running. This was fully wound, and it slowly started ticking away. No idea if it's keeping proper time yet, but at least it's reasonably free to move. However, after about an hour it stops, it's done that twice now as of posting. If I give the watch a small shake it starts up again, and runs for a while longer. 

I suspect it's in dire need of service, a complete disassembly, clean and relubing of pivots. Is there anything else I should be on the lookout for? I don't have the tools required right now, so I'm going to order some proper small screwdrivers at the very least, and dig up my case holder from whatever box it's in right now. Will be getting a new crystal for it too, and may repolish the case if a deep clean doesn't make it look good enough.

I also cleaned the face with distilled water on a q-tip. I definitely don't want to clean it any deeper or run the risk of damaging anything. It lifted off a bit of crud, and I'm actually quite enjoying the patina it has right now.

But...does anyone know of this watch, or the movement? The movement is a 15 jewel Swiss movement, and it's marked "CITY" on the ratchet wheel, but that's about it as far as clues go. The case is stamped 193?, at least leading me to believe this was made in the 1930s. There, however, the train runs cold. Any info about this would be very appreciated! 

Images below:

[mikepilk]

That looks like a lot of radium on the hands and dial. Take care : I wear a mask and gloves when working on radium dials. I work on some plastic sheet and everything I use for cleaning - q-tips, tissue, water, etc gets double bagged for disposal. All tools washed under the tap. Radium paint easily dissolves in water. I've just 'cleaned' the radium from the dial and hands of an old Rotary watch. I use water on q-tips to remove it from the dial, and use the ultrasonic to remove it from the hands. Then check it with a geiger counter, and re-clean until it doesn't detect any radiation.

[SwitchAndLever]

48 minutes ago, mikepilk said:

That looks like a lot of radium on the hands and dial. Take care : I wear a mask and gloves when working on radium dials. I work on some plastic sheet and everything I use for cleaning - q-tips, tissue, water, etc gets double bagged for disposal. All tools washed under the tap. Radium paint easily dissolves in water. I've just 'cleaned' the radium from the dial and hands of an old Rotary watch. I use water on q-tips to remove it from the dial, and use the ultrasonic to remove it from the hands. Then check it with a geiger counter, and re-clean until it doesn't detect any radiation.

Oh neat! Does this mean I will glow in the dark now?

I don't have a geiger counter, but I did a quick test (read about this elsewhere) where I shine a very strong flashlight on the dial in a dark room and look for luminescence once the light is off. And it's there, but fades in about two seconds once the light is out. 

Honestly I'm not all that worried, I will probably work on this again once I have the tools to do so, but any work (besides removing hands to disassemble the entire movement for cleaning) won't touch the dial side at all. Should I be concerned? Will wearing this watch in the future pose any sort of danger? I really don't want to "fix" the dial any more than I already have, I like the patina.

[Dmitry]

Obviously it needs a good cleaning and proper oiling during full service. The fact that it stops about once an hour, I would have a very close look at the hour wheel and each of the teeth, it is possible that one of the teeth is bent or broken, thus stopping the watch on the hour.

[mikepilk]

9 hours ago, SwitchAndLever said:

Oh neat! Does this mean I will glow in the dark now?

I don't have a geiger counter, but I did a quick test (read about this elsewhere) where I shine a very strong flashlight on the dial in a dark room and look for luminescence once the light is off. And it's there, but fades in about two seconds once the light is out. 

Honestly I'm not all that worried, I will probably work on this again once I have the tools to do so, but any work (besides removing hands to disassemble the entire movement for cleaning) won't touch the dial side at all. Should I be concerned? Will wearing this watch in the future pose any sort of danger? I really don't want to "fix" the dial any more than I already have, I like the patina.

There's no need to be unduly worried, but do be aware of possible dangers 

The main concern is not to inhale any radium dust. You don't want alpha particle emitters in the body - it's what the Russians used to kill Alexander Litnivenko.  No need to panic though.  I would recommend wearing a mask when handling the dial/hands and wash you hands thoroughly afterwards. Store them in plastic bags until you need them. 

When assembled in the watch, the glass and metal case block the more dangerous alpha particles but not the less dangerous gamma. As to the dangers of wearing the watch, it's your choice :

Here is a Universal Geneve I have with radium dial and hands (I want to keep this one original)
which emits about 1 microsievert/h. (this is quite low for a radium watch - it could be tens to hundreds times higher)

Normal background radiation is about 0.15 - 0.4 microsieverts/h.

So if I wore it 10 hour/day for a year = 3.6 millisieverts. Which is about the same as you get from background radiation.

The lowest dose for which cancer is clearly evident is 100 millisieverts / year.

The radiation is all cumulative, so best not to add too much (x-rays, flying, CT scans etc) unless you have to.

My choice is, I'm happy to wear this watch occasionally but I don't use it as a daily watch.

If that was my watch, I'd remove the radium from the hands - which looks to be most of it, leave the dial, and don't sleep with it on !

This is worth a read : https://www.vintagewatchstraps.com/luminous.php

Edited December 5, 2021 by mikepilk

[SwitchAndLever]

7 hours ago, Dmitry said:

Obviously it needs a good cleaning and proper oiling during full service. The fact that it stops about once an hour, I would have a very close look at the hour wheel and each of the teeth, it is possible that one of the teeth is bent or broken, thus stopping the watch on the hour.

It actually stopped exhibiting that issue after a few such stops, and has now been running happily for about twelve hours, as far as I can see without losing anything but seconds in the process. So for a beat up watch, who knows when it was serviced last, that's not too bad I'd say. It's probably just a buildup of gunk in the movement which needs to be cleaned out.  

[SwitchAndLever]

2 hours ago, mikepilk said:

If that was my watch, I'd remove the radium from the hands - which looks to be most of it, leave the dial, and don't sleep with it on !

Yeah, I've taken a good long think about it since yesterday and read up on all the sources. I think I'm going to shelf this watch for now, I don't feel like this is a great candidate for my first project watch. I'd want to get rid of the radioactive material fully, but that would probably also require filling in the numbers again and relume the hands, which is beyond my capacity at the moment (and I don't have a geiger counter either). I will continue digging through bins of watches at flea markets for another more appropriate watch to dig into. Hopefully I can revisit it in the future

[JohnR725]

16 hours ago, SwitchAndLever said:

I don't have a geiger counter, but I did a quick test (read about this elsewhere) where I shine a very strong flashlight on the dial in a dark room and look for luminescence once the light is off. And it's there, but fades in about two seconds once the light is out.

The problem as I don't know of regular luminescence material goes bad with time? Really the best way is with the Geiger counter or something it detects radiation. But vanish away I do have to agree they have that look of radium. Radium as the unfortunate problem of burning things including the florescent material that was mixed with. If the hands stay in one place for too long a lot of times the burn the dial you'll see marks were the hands were. In some extreme cases innovative and will burn the crystal.

19 hours ago, SwitchAndLever said:

But...does anyone know of this watch, or the movement? The movement is a 15 jewel Swiss movement, and it's marked "CITY" on the ratchet wheel, but that's about it as far as clues go.

Problem and watch repair is? You can have a name on the dial and a name on the back of the movement but neither of which may have actually made the movement itself. If you're lucky a movement mark will be found under the balance wheel. Sometimes it's under the dial and worst-case if we know the diameter the watch and you take a nice picture under the dial of the setting parts we can possibly find the watch that way.

[mikepilk]

16 minutes ago, JohnR725 said:

 If the hands stay in one place for too long a lot of times the burn the dial you'll see marks were the hands were. In some extreme cases innovative and will burn the crystal.

I recently bought this Rotary. From the colour and condition of the lume, I assumed that the radium lume had been replaced. But it is radium. You can see it has marked the dial at 8 o'clock.

Not as bad as this one though - I'd put my lead lined underwear on before going near that one ! 

 

[LittleWatchShop]

[Repivot]

You asked if anyone heard of this watch. Truth is many watches of this vintage were made by one of several manufacturers. The names on the dials and movements were sometimes just brands they were marketed as. I've not come across this name before. To find out the manufacturer, you'll need to remove the dial and match the winding and setting parts to the Bestfit "fingerprints". This will not only tell you the make, but also model number.