Living with crazed acrylic crystals on a vintage watch...

In the past, I would always ask my watchmaker to replace a crazed acrylic crystal. I'm wondering if I should rethink this. In some cases it's impossible to find the exact crystal originally used on the watch. EPSA Super Compressor watches have special crystals not easy to find and I have several watches with date magnifiers on the underside, also very tough to find, if at all. Putting a plain crystal on these changes the look. I also question the quality of some new acrylic crystals. I find some are kind of "milky" from certain angles, while the vintage crystals although crazed, appear very clear (when not in sunlight). Collectors are fussy about original parts on a vintage watch, but crystals seem a grey area. So I'm wondering what thoughts other collectors have about keeping original crystals on a watch, even if they are crazed, or even cracked.

I often opt to change out plexi crystals if the scratches are too deep and hard to salvage because admiring beauty of the dial is my priority. Keep the orig of course, esp those w centre logos like UG and Mido or as u mentioned, underside date mags. Side note, always wondered how polishing of dome plexis work. Is it even possible?

Depends what you mean by "crazed". These are scratches, easy to polish out.




These are cracks, the crystal gets changed before moisture gets in. If the old crystal is the original to the watch ask for it to be returned to you.



Now the grey area. For me if the damage has the potential to get worse then it's treated as a crack.

This watch is now on its 4th crystal from new. Unfortunately I didn't have the foresight to ask for the original crystal at the first replacement.