Elgin Grade 82, Mystery Chip

You never know what you'll find inside a watch.

At the edge of the crystal here there is visible what looks very much like a chip in the edge of the glass. Such chips are common, but that is not what this is.

Here's the chip sitting on the dial after replacing and removing the front bezel caused it to fall. It is a chip of glass, but it is not from the crystal on this watch.  In fact, I could find no chips out of the crystal at all, and have no idea were this tiny bit of glass came from.

This is an example of why getting a watch cleaned is a good idea.  This bit of glass is certainly not doing this watch any good floating around in there, and could harm something if it got inside.

So where did it come from?

That is a mystery.  But you sometimes see things like this when looking really, really closely at things.

This is an Elgin grade 82. It's an 18 size, lever-set movement that was made in both 13 and 15 jewel versions. This example was made about 1885.