Wristwatch Gold Polishing

Just bragging on my fortune, today, I guess....
I have a Cartier Tank Francaise - yellow gold with alligator strap. I know Cartier (via our main jeweler's that sells Cartiers and deals with repair) charges a fortune to polish their watches, and they plainly share they don't expect to get the deepest scratches out. And it takes awhile, with most people away from the big center having to wait for the shipping, etc.

So I've always avoided dealing with Cartier for this and have gone to some lengths, and still somewhat of an expense, to have my watch polished from time to time. Then I find out my main watch repair guy - right downtown where I work - would do it for a fairly low price, fairly quickly (within a few days or even hours if he's not too busy), and he'd do a pretty decent job. So I had that done by him once.

Now it's maybe a few years later, and the scratches are quite annoying. I brought the watch today and said I'd like to leave it. He takes it into the next room - his workshop - and zip, zip, zip, it's done! I thought he was just examining it....I asked the price and he said "no charge" - he had the buffer already set up because he just did another watch, and he didn't spend any money on it. And it looks very good. So - success! of course this sort of thing makes me feel like going to him - for other things he has to charge for! But Cartier - For Shame!
Edited by Lafont - 9/12/11 at 12:17pm

Bragged too fast! I looked later at the watch and saw annoying gashes on the edge of the left brancard. That's what I noticed one day and what made me take the watch there.... He did say something about he didn't want to go too far, but....
I'm going back to show him - in the vague chance the guy really didn't see these marks. However, I assume he did and didn't want to buff the brancards to that level. Disappinting!

Since I got this pre-owned Cartier in 2005 I was thinking in terms of having and wearing it the rest of my life, unless it got really smashed, fell into the ocean, was stolen, or the like. I had a certain confidence that scratches could be removed - i.e. smoothed out.,. I don't like the ides of these marks being there the rest of my life. If this guy won't do more I'll go to a few jewelers who do repair work and then the main jewelers that works with Cartier. I don't want to pay a fortune but I do know that scratches by themselves only multiply if not get deeper.

How is a watch 'over-polished?" Does that mean some of the gold was lost and/or the technician doesn't polish it evenly - e.g. he makes it unlevel?

Thanks for your imput.. I used to see mixed opinions on this on the Timezone Cartier forum I used to be on. Anyway, it's a few years later and I'm open to new ideas or information.

I went to a few standard watch repair places. Each said "about $100" and there are some deeper scratches they didn't expect to remove. One said they could "make it like new" for more money. One employee said the polish guy is out but called him and reported the guy who would do it for $100-200 but it was kind of dumb because the guy he spoke with on the phone was never even told if it's an all-gold watch or one with a leather strap.... (it'sthe latter).

Then I went to our jewelers that is our main local Cartier AD. Sales associate showed their watchmaker the watch and came back and said $240-280 and something like "4-6 weeks." Crazy, as usual. Also disturbing was that the lady said the watchmaker already noticed a bit of unevenness from previous polishings, and asked if I get it polished often. I said no.

I'm terribly sensitive to things crooked, out-of-kilter, etc. and I certainly don't notice anything uneven from the few polishings I've had since getting the watch pre-owned in 2005. I'm never clear here: when does watch polishing involve smoothing out the gold - i.e. evening it out because with damage some is raised and some is lowered (i.e. a scratch)? And when does polishing involve actual removal of gold - which is what I obviously don't want?

I don't like the idea of my dream watch having annoying scratches the rest of my life, yet I don't want the shape permanently altered either. Where do you folks stand on this? I suppose I can continue having the watch lightly buffed every once in a while to remove the most superficial scratches, but I'm not hapy with having certain scratches remain in the watch forever.

What do most do with a good, 18K gold watch that one wants to wear frequently? Never having the deeper dents removed? Just live with it? Give up the watch when it gets too damaged? Actually try to get someone to remove as many scratches as possible even if gold is removed?

This Cartier Tank Francaise is a dream watch for me and was hoping to wear it the rest of my life - for dress and certain other occasions. Do most owners of the better solid gold watches just let the scratches accumulate and so be it? Surely not everyone just goes out and purchase another expensive watch....