I was wondering how multicolored (or tri-colored) cases are made. I was under the impression that the colored parts were painted on, but I now highly doubt that that is the case considering these parts can be polished. With that said, how safe is it to polish a multicolored watch without removing the color?

Thanks!
Gary

Hello Gary,

A "good" or "real" multi-color case will usually have the colors in solid gold - even on a gold filled case. Therefore, would think it would take a lot of elbow grease to remove the color on one of these cases.

Maybe 1 in 250-500 gold filled or solid cases made was multi-color (just a guess)

Great, thanks for the info!

I can't think of too many cases that were painted but some were enameled for logos and such but in those cases it is clear what was done. You typically see cases like Jon posted that have different alloy mixes of gold to get the green, rose, yellow look and you do see this done to gold filled or rolled plate cases. Usually you see this on ladies cases but you also see this look with the typical train, elk, deer, etc and even sometimes on silveroid cases.

I don't have a clue how it was done and probably now is a near "lost art" but as Jon mentioned basic cleaning will not hurt it. Sometimes you will see where the design has lost its crispness due to pocket wear and sometimes people will take them to a jeweler to get the design refreshed. I have a cases with an elk, flowers on it that I plan on getting it refreshed to bring the design back to life.
Wikipedia article showing gold allow mixes

Thin parts of colored gold alloy in the desired shape were punched out of sheets of gold arranged and soldered to the gold, plated or silver base. Then the details were graved and punched.
This almost lost art was used in France in the mid of the 17th century and called 'quatre couleurs' (four colors), then it came to England and the Swiss and finally to the States. A variation of this technique used on the golden 'inlays' at name shield watch cases and the well known 'Choo-Choo' cases with a silver base and pink gold applications.

Regards
Gerald