Polishing depends on the watch and the customer, but seldom using a buffing wheel. Watches come to him in every condition as you can imagine, since he will be glad to buy almost any mechanical watch for parts.
The shop serves some wealthy local collectors, a whole bunch of collectors in the mid-ranges (like me), and the general public.
It is quite a place. There are hundreds of NOS watches, medium and better brands, from jewelry stores that were closing and he bought the inventory. Hundreds of used watches, all brands. Thousands of metal bracelets and thousands of straps. Thousands--I do mean thousands--of broken watches.
Here's three stories. First, I was helping a friend deal with a 14K gold 1940s Longines where the square dial had considerable patina. Went to see if it could perhaps be cleaned up a bit. In under a minute, he pulled the exact watch out of a little drawer, and we considered whether its (slightly better) dial would be a better option. Honest, the identical watch.
Next story. Imagine you are looking for a leather strap. You know the lug size and let's say you've narrowed it down to "brown".
So, you get handed a large plastic tub (think three or four shoeboxes worth) full of NOS brown straps with the correct lug size, and invited to find the one you like. In the tub are all price ranges of strap. Leather, reptile, gold buckles, silver buckles...he has these tubs of straps for every lug width from 14 mm up. Lots will have the old price tags still on them.
Third story. I had an old Rolex cal 58 (?) with a tooth missing from the winding wheel. He pulled out a small cabinet drawer that had four of those movements in it, plus some other random movement parts from that calibre. Presto.
The watch community here is so lucky. Vintage watch heaven, and a great guy too.
