Before you ask to see the movement, look at the dial.
The dial will tell you things the movement cannot. It will tell you how the watch was used, how it was stored, whether it was serviced by someone who understood it. It will tell you whether the watch in front of you is what it is claimed to be.
Start at the edges. The area just inside the bezel, where the dial meets the case, accumulates moisture before anywhere else. A dial that has been wet shows it here first: a faint tide line, a lifting of the lacquer, a change in the base colour that runs parallel to the edge. This is not always a disqualification. But it requires an explanation.
Look at the printing. On a dial from the 1950s or 1960s, the text should have a specific quality. Applied indices should sit flush and true. Printed text should have clean edges under magnification. A reprint, done to make a damaged dial presentable, rarely achieves this. The ink sits differently. The depth is wrong. Under a loupe, it becomes clear.
Look at the colour. Dials age in predictable ways determined by their materials. Lacquered dials yellow from the centre outward. Matte dials develop a particular dusty quality that is difficult to fake. Tropical dials, those that have shifted from black to brown or honey under decades of UV exposure, are among the most sought-after in the market. They cannot be manufactured. They can only be aged, and ageing cannot be rushed.
The dial is the face the watch chose to wear over fifty years. It is worth examining carefully before you look anywhere else.