The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Hi, just wondering what colour patina is the most undesireable on a vintage Breitling. I have seen the patina go from white to a light eggshell yellow like in this watch( a vintage 1680 sub) of mine to a light/dark green/black in some Navitimer examples on the web which are otherwise perfect. I am assuming that the tritium used on Navitimers had similar composition to that used in Rolexes but have never seen green/black patina on vintage Rolexes, so am curious why it's only seen in that shade on vintage Navitimers. Could it be that the water proofing on the Navitimers in that era wasn't good enough and caused moisture to enter the watch easily causing the patina to go green/black and Rolex didn't have that issue because of the screw down Oyster case? But that doesn't explain why the pearl on the sub also perfectly matches the patina on the markers and hands even though it's exposed to the elements but have seen ones that don't.
I like the mildy eggshell yellow to a creamy yellow patina. Would very dark patina that's green/dark green/black in Navitimers indicate that the tritium is damaged or is it just due to the composition of the tritium that was different?

Thanks

I am not 100% sure but I believe I think its moisture that reacts with the lume and it depends on how little or how much the watch was worn

The watertight 765 AVI's and early divers Breitling can have a very nice eggshell / creme colour and their lume typically looks better

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"I spent most of my money on Booze, Breitling and Boats. The rest I wasted" - mostly Elmore Leonard

Thanks Dracha. Also think it was the more radioactive radium rather than tritium used at that time, right? Think radium had a greater tendency to change colour compared to tritium and luminova. Also being highly radioactive, that could explain why the hands et al would get easily corroded. I understand that there was a huge health thing back then about workers falling sick by handling radium and painting radium dials because of which the industry finally moved on to tritium and then to luminova.

Bump, anyone more opinions? Btw what's the original tritium colour?

white(ish)

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"I spent most of my money on Booze, Breitling and Boats. The rest I wasted" - mostly Elmore Leonard

Thanks, just asking because have come across some referring to the original colour as green.