Authentic parts

[admitch]

Being new to the watch repair community, please forgive my ignorance!

My primary interest is older watch/clocks. I am concentrating on learning about pocket watches for now.

The first thing I noticed about the PW's on EBay was the obvious lack of authentic (original design) parts.

I saw older movements with dials and hands that are obviously new. Based on what I saw on other PW's of same style/date, the style of the dial and hands were different from original design. I can understand the need to use replacement parts, but wonder why the new parts are not exactly the same design as the original?

I also noticed that movements of a certain date were placed in cases not offered at that date. I guess people are trying to sell the pocket watches and not retain the historical quality. I can understand placing a movement in a replacement case, but should it not be the ones which were used originally.

I wish there was a manual or collection showing the original dials/hands for watches of each period. I know that there were custom cases, etc in the early years, but would it not be nice to have a book for the millions of PW's of the 1900-1930's.