Comments on Luminova vs tritium dials/hands...

[automatico]

Regarding the 'no glow' 1016 dial in the Parts FS area...rwc was just starting out making their own dials when they made the T-25 Lumi 'transition' dials so maybe they did not get a proper mix with the Luminova on some of the dials or it might even be tritium but it would need to be tested...who knows?

 I have some new genuine 1675 and 1019 hands in packs with LUMI stamped on them so I guess they marked everything during the changeover so they could tell Lumi from tritium at a glance. I also charged up a couple sets of 1570 ST submariner hands and the color is a little bit paler than the 1016 Lumi dial but still pretty close. These hands are marked 2013 (I usually try to mark dates on parts) so they are probably same as what is available now and supposedly use Luminova for filler. They are finely made and have a slight curvature in the center hub. My guess is they are made of plated brass and this is fine because rolex submariner hands were not made of gold back in the 1960s/1970s anyway far as I know.

I have some hands that I do not know if they are Trit or Lumi so I bought a little radiation detector that works with an Iphone but have not tried it on anything yet and I hope the detector can sort them out. I had a set of H-M-S hands marked 'tritium' in the box with the Lumi 1016 dial but could not find any H-M-S sets of Lumi merc hands, only the 1675 four hand set and 1019 hands. I doubt if the glow from trit hands matches Lumi hands because the rolex Lumi glow has a lot of green in it. Many genuine rolex watches that came with trit dials may have had the hands swapped out with Lumi hands during service and still have a trit dial if it was in good condition. The lume in my trit dials/hands glows whiter than the Lumi dials/hands so maybe the glowing color match is really not so important as they look pretty close when not charged up.

Tritium color change...I bought a new 16760 GMT II in 1989 from a local AD (30% off = $1465), never wore it and put it away until 1995...when I took  it out  of the box the lume in the hands had yellowed but the lume in the dial markers was white as new and it was all tritium. It looked awful but was still same as new. Sold it for $1900 as nos in November 1995. Now they call them 'Fat Lady' and sell them high, even when they are beat up with the tritium falling out.

I have some 10 or 12 year old watches with Luminova and the filler looks about the same as it did new, at least it stayed the same color on markers and hands.

Radiation detector eBay item number:  191473650729

[highoeyazmuhudee]

hate to burst your bubble but i dont think a geiger counter can detect tritium. radium, yes.

[automatico]

"hate to burst your bubble but i dont think a geiger counter can detect tritium. radium, yes."

You are probably right, tritium does not emit much radiation. I read about the detector on another watch forum. Chances are all it might do is indicate a radioactive substance is present and that will suit me. I'll post the results after I try it.