ALS Sax-o-Mat movement wear marks

[bondtoys]

Hello all,

I've just picked up my second ALS with the gorgeous Sax-o-Mat movement.

On a close inspection, I have discovered these scratches kind on the black-polished surface of the mainspring barrel cap.



So, I went back to my other ALS and have discovered less deep but still obvious marks on that one, too.



Now before you tell me "This happens when an unqualified watchmaker services a precious ALS watch (that was my first line of thought), check this out:

https://www.watchprosite.com/a.-lang...63858.6704798/

That watch (brand new back then) quite obviously has been lent to various watch magazines (all of the reviews from that time show the watch with the serial 217721) and check the 4th pic from that article:



The watch was also reviewed by Hodinkee and others, but most of them used a stock pic of the same movement which is photoshopped/enhanced.


So quite obviously, at least one new watch from the manufacture had this kind of mark as well.

I've been spending some time today to check every available pic that I could find and I can say, that ALL watches that exposed the critical section on real pics had this mark.

Anyone knows what that is?