To begin we have a discolored acrylic crystal and some rust damage on the hands.
Early types of plastics used for what they called “unbreakable” watch crystals tint with age. Yellow is the most common color but you’ll also see blue and green tones. The problem with this is that the plastic degases corrosion fumes while this is happening. Hands are almost always damaged and sometimes destroyed. The damage can spread too, to the cannon pinion, center wheel and other steel parts just inside the center.
Old plastic crystals that have changed color like this are probably long done releasing corrosive gases, but I don’t know. They should probably be replaced with glass, or modern plexiglass crystals which do not have this problem.
This movement has a really elegant tangential pallet (the older, English style escapement design).
For some reason this little flat spring seems to often be broken. It’s shown here loose, a replacement installed nearby. This spring doesn’t do much. It compresses when the lever is in just to give a little tactile feedback, and slightly hold the lever in.
Unfortunately I was not able to save the minute hand. This is a different one that I was able to fit. As usual when making the hole in the boss larger I over-shot and had to make it a little smaller again. I always seem to do that…
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