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Hey all just bought a used crosswind with what appears to be a production of 1999-2000. Despite leaving the watch in the sun none of the numbers or hands glow even a little. Is this normal given the watches age or should I be concerned with the watches authenticity. It came with box and all papers minus cosc certificate.


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It's probably tritium like at that age. At the bottom of the dial does it have the words Swiss Made below the 6 marker, and if so is there a T or an L to either side of Swiss Made?

There is no Swiss made here's a pic. After looking around it doesn't appear that any of the crosswinds with this dial day swissmade



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Yeah, not surprised but it's the only reliable way to distinguish between tritium and SuperLuminova without clearly seeing the lume. My guess is that it is tritium and that ages at a predictable rate, the practical lifetime of regular tritium lume is 20 years or so and it fades as it gets closer to that age. No real solution other than to see if Breitling can relume with SL during servicing.

Good to know I didn't realize that breitling used tritium in the past


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I suspect T means tritium. But what does L mean?

Luminova? I'm guessing here...

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L is used to indicate SuperLuminova. No longer necessary because Breitling hasn't used tritium for quite a while.

I believe it's SL, never seen CW with T.
Try to charge it with a very strong lamp/torch.
Put it close to dial for a minute, it should work if everything is ok.

Hi there. I have a 2002 Crosswind and gave it to my local Breitling lab for an overhaul. Came back as new with Luminous restored.




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Was the dial relumed or replaced?


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The old non-tritium lume was not so super.

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Chrono Avenger M1, Ti- yellow dial, on Pro II Ti bracelet.
Avenger Code Yellow LE, on Diver Pro II strap, w/arabic dial.

I had a CSO from 2003 with super lume. I think the SO/CSO series do have better lume than the Chronomats - maybe even today. (SO/CSO have a greenish, while Chronomats have whiteish daylight/lume color so some difference must there be.)

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Reading over this post I felt some deja vu.
I purchased a few Breitlings from the 90’s with and without the same problem. The only explanation I can come up with was they may have used different formulas of Luminova or SuperLuminova. I was wondering if the use of the different illuminating paints could be a reason?