Hi guys, with so many questions discussing the various types of lumes over the different time periods, relumes, lumes on service replacement parts etc. thought that contributions from experts and newbies here to this thread could serve as a stepping stone to add some measure of certainty in answering those questions. This will also help in cataloging those nuances and make Breitling collecting more attractive to collectors who appreciate the finer details of collecting vintage watches.
Here are some of the points we came across in the other thread
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=35429&start=15 that I have collated, please let me know if you would like to include anything else!
KurtQuote:
1) It is beyond doubt that Breitling did not use Luminova in 1966
2) Tritium have a porous and uneven surface, Luminova have a kind of acrylic surface, and it is very even. Look at the attached picture of the tritium on the markers on a NOS 1965 AOPA Navitimer, then you will clearly see what I mean.
3) In a picture of the Tritium on a 1970 NOS Navitimer that I just sold, notice that the red arrow paint have faded.
4) Cruvon has made a point that definitely is worth listening to, as if the industry over the years has changed the “look” of Tritium, into the look of the Lume on your watch, then I’ll stand corrected.
RoffensianQuote:
1) Any original tritium lume would be as good as dead now, the half life of tritium is 12 years. Therefore any watch that has a degree of visible lume has been relumed.
cruvonQuote:
1) Tritium would have been present even on 70"s watches true, esp with the "T Swiss T". For example my Rolex 1680 with tritium markers and the "T Swiss T", is dated 73-74. Looking at a closeup pic(ignore the specs of dust on the crystal), I can see the porous texture of tritium. The earlier years application(50's and 60's) of tritium and radium had a more puffier and porous look compared to later which was porous but not puffy, guess that was to do with improvements in applying the lume in later years.
2) have heard(could be here-say) that a good test to check if is luminova is to expose the watch to say 1-2 mins facing a bright light source(pref halogen light) and see if it glows green in the dark, tritium will definetely not glow any longer(not sure if is possible for the tritium to glow very faintly in some cases though but luminova should glow brightly). Tritium is not strongly radioactive, it's half-life is 12.5 years so it would have stopped glowing quite a while ago. As you see in my Rolex pic above, some watches had T< 25 to indicate that only a limited radioctivity of less than 25mCI was put in pointing to the health conciousness setting in amongst users back then about radioctive content in watches I guess from the radium era. Wondering if Breitling too used any T<25 tritium and have such indication on the dial? .
3) The progression of lume was
Radium
Tritium
Luminova and
Superluminova
4) Also read about a device called the UV luminova finder device that says when pointed for a couple of seconds at the dial lights up the dial markers
with a "apple green" shade of colour that is typical of luminova, while nothing happens if used with tritium.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... va&ct=clnk
Also some interesting discussion on tritium here
http://www.rolexforums.com/archive/inde ... 71234.html
5) Reluming has a bearing on collectability on a watch being valued way less when being sold or extremely hard to sell especially if both the dial and hands have been relumed and that would affect the not so rare vintages more than the rarer ones. So I wouldn't relume a vintage watch even if was a practical thing to do or was a daily wearer and more importantly to keep it original.
So shoot your questions!!
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