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do a search it's been discussed before while I have a Geiger counter I don't recall that's on the normal watchmakers tool list? are you suggesting we destroy a sizable part of the vintage watches because the reality is radium is everywhere and watch repair anything vintage is probably going to have radium of some quantity. No I'm not trying to belittle your discovery I'm just pointing out we've discussed it before. It really becomes a problem in a few have a Geiger counter and then you're aware of oh dear should I be concerned? For instance I once did a Mickey Mouse watch for somebody and the person who brought it to me was an assistant of a radiologist. So I pointed out oh by the way those hands are radium. She returned to watch the Doctor who took out his Geiger counter and the watch was never seen again. Oh definitely excited about watches whited to take up military timepiece collecting. The military more was definitely better. As Seattle is relatively close to the Canadian border the local watch and clock collectors oftentimes go to meetings in Canada. On two separate occasions I've heard from people when coming back got pulled over at the border. That's because they had the ships clock with radium hands. I don't know if the clock was confiscated or not I think there were more concerned about something else which the clock was not. Do a search we discussed it before on the message board.

You don't need to worry. The Kevlar will protect you!! I thought this topic had already been fleshed out on WRT, but I searched "radium" and did not find the thread. Bottom line...you need not worry...not for a moment. Do not lick the dial, nor the hands. I suspect that even if you did, it would have zero impact. I have several reports commissioned by the US government that provides an analysis of a variety of scenarios (professional watchmaker, amateur watchmaker, wearing in chest pocket, on the wrist, etc.). It is just not an issue. Moreover, my anecdotal evidence is that my father was a watchmaker working on watches from 1946 until 1990. I know he had and worked on many radium watches. He died at 93 of causes unrelated to radiation. Go read this thread. The documents I mentioned can be found there.

Hi Bruno . I have quite a few watches from the 30s up to the 50s that have radium lume. There are differences of opinions on this subject. Somewhere here is a chart with radioative danger levels of materials we encounter during general living. Radium lume did seem rather low in relation to what is hazardous to us and within certain guidelines of exposure. That being said if incorrectly handled and disturbed risk would be higher. Any dust inhaled and absorption through your skin an obvious danger. The British MOD did change dials to a safer Tritium lume dial on their mil spec. watches after the second world war second as and when they were serviced . It doesnt stop me working on watches with radium but i am extra careful and do wear a face mask as a precaution. The risks though are entirely your decision. People can smoke heavily all through their life without any cancer scares others get away with very little. Some research on the subject will help you decide.

This is a good article on the subject. The bottom line is be very careful when handling dials and hands you suspect are painted with radium paint. Wear a face mask and wear finger cots. https://www.wristwatchreview.com/how-do-you-know-if-a-watch-has-radium-hands/

Hi, my name is Bruno I have a couple of wwii watches that I intend to start a cleaning and oiling process. But I have got concerned about possible dangerous materials they could have specifically radium on dial (dial painting or numerals?) or hands. My question is if this a real concern? Do you guys have experience about working on it? Or should I just give up on them for the best of my health. i have an A-11 bulova (at least seems original) and an Alprosa, both supposed to be from WWII age.

I don't think i would trust your cat to wear it personally. Its giving the watch something of a sideye and probably thinking it will hide it along with its next poo burial. They can get awfully jealous pussycats lol. Crack it open toptime and lets have a look inside. And also the caseback. Im something of a fan and have done a fair bit of reasearch on these. Mine is a decommissioned record with its original nato redial after the radium recall.

So i think I've figured it out with a little research. This is definitely a Record Dirty Dozen, one of around 25,000 built towards the end of WW2. But with a Nato redial for a safer lume. The radium dials were decommissioned in the 50s then the watch put back into service with the new dial. The serial number on the dial was given to the Record, a few other makes had the same treatment with a different serial number, IWC, Timor and Omega. After the watch's eventual complete decommissioning it was sold to the general public, this may have been anytime between the 50s and possibly as late as the 70s . This is indicated on the caseback by the bottom serial number which is its decommissioning civilian serial number. Decom. Date either 1952 or 1976. Either first 2 or last 2 numbers I'm not sure which yet. I'm inclined to believe 52 as the caseback has a watchmakers service mark of 1963, but this is a complete guess. Personally i would have picked the last 2 numbers of 76 so 1976. Bit more research needed. The designation W10 came about in 1957 when the ATP watches were decommissioned and sold off to the public. Any remaining DDs in service that went into the stores were awarded this new W10 designation along with the new safer Tritium dial.

I would just dab the dial gently with Rodico. Those "red dots" will be radium - take the recommended care should-i-be-worried-about-radium Basically it's flaking radium you want to avoid, so I would keep the dial in a sealed plastic bag. Once you get a glass fitted it will be OK.

As a decaying nucleus fissions it transforms into smaller nuclei so alpha particles among many others may pop into existance what actually happens, is that the released energy may be enough for making a new particle and the energy flow tends to stablize at the first possible stable state. Alpha particle is nucleus of helium, upon forming it quickly absorbs two electrons to stablize as helium, the newly formed helium is still as radio active as its nucleus, so if inhaled or ingested two major route it may go. 1- It may just go through our digestive system and leave our body, though it may get re-absorbed in vegtables or other food we eat , It wont disappear it just dispersses in nature. 2- It may get absorbed in some organ of our body. It all depends on the chemical composition of what we have ingested/ inhaled. Let presume its absorbed in our blood, it will stay and circulate throughout our body where ever blood goes. providing sufficient amount of radium in our blood it may cause blood cancer. If however the radio active nuclei ends up in our nail or hair it will depart in a few months, so exposure periods differ. Alpha particles do penetrate solid material like our bones or flesh, but only a short distance, it travels only a few centermeter in air. Its a massive particle so wont travel far. Other fission products such as beta or gamma particles are considered massless , they are of elctromagnetic nature so they frantically travel through the space for they have no mass or mass too small that we have been unable to discern/detect, as we speak we are recieving particles released at big bang. Consider the vastness of routes fission product may head and you will see we are the ingrediants of a soup material existance is made of, about all we can do is to stay away from strong current of radioactivity and minimize our exposure to it. Guys who made and sell you this toy "the gieger counter " knew that our brain produces fear when dealing with unknown. For all we know you could be living near a strong radioacrive source all your life, did anyone measure the dose in imported sugare or fronts coming you direction form near or far neighbores. If you work on watches just don't inhale/ ingest the luminous material and stop worrying about a threat thats no threat to you. I spent years experimenting with nuclear reactors and I know for a fact my accumulative exposure is neglegible. STOP WORRY ING.

Yes, but it Swiss watches it was phased out in 64-65. I haven't found anything about Japanese watches and when it was changed. I've done a bit of Googling, and the opinion seems to be : "Unfortunately, doubts have been cast on the idea that the letters “R”, “T” or “P” printed alongside other numbers at the bottom of the dial on some Seiko watches relate to the lume terms “Radium”, “Tritium”, and “Promethium”, especially for watches made after Seiko had abandoned the use of radium lume". I bought a cheap geiger counter so that I can check pre '65 watches. Some really send it spinning !

I recently bought a Seiko 62MAS (1966 or 1967). It’s a lovely watch but I’ve stumbled upon a lot of articles about radium lume and it’s making me a little nervous. Does anyone know of Seiko was still using radium for their dials in the 1960s?

I believe I have solved the mystery here. Finally got the watch in my hands to take a closer look. The watch movement along with case and hands were heavily modified. Hands are not original to this watch, they been modified. The hands holes were enlarged so they can feet this caliber. Case also was modified and is not original to this watch. The original lugs were cut and replaced with a larger ones.The numbers on dial, they don’t have the radium lumens like all military watches have, they have black paint. The dial seems to be original but far away to by military. Also I believe the case was borrowed from another watch , perhaps Venus. Looking at the star stamp and I’m comparing with the logo of the Venus watch. They look very similar to my eyes. Not to mention the balance wheel does not have the Breguet hairsping. According to my research the caliber 570 supposed to have Breguet hairspring and not flat like this one. Also this particular movement has only 5 jewels. At least this is my conclusion with this watch. That’s way I have posted my conclusions here, perhaps I can help somebody else in the future not to purchase this watch. This is definitely a Franken watch.

It is definitely not a DD ; I will attach a image with an example of DD Cyma. Perhaps could be an early military watch if the dial is original. But how about the hands? They don’t feet the military style at all…they mostly have the radium style hands.

Picked up a military pocket watch non-runner for around £20, which to me at present with my ultra-noob skillset means "curiosity value". From what I'd seen you usually screw the back off, but this one isn't budging and has some pry marks font and back either side of the crown. Should I have a go too with a pry tool? Thought I should check before adding to any damage! Also, just read about radium. Maybe I shouldn't be messing with it at all and just find a lead-lined safe to put it in! How concerned should I be. Obviously you wouldn't want to be inhaling deeply with the front off, but what is the danger level with this sort of thing? Should a noob be messing with this at all?

If it's Oris it will almost definitely be on the barrel bridge and almost always with the calibre number. Sometimes in a logo shield that looks a little bit like bat wings, the letters OWC. Oris Watch Company. Also sometimes stamped on the inside of the case back. Oris were quite in house , which is why I buy them, I appreciate that they made everything themselves and were family owned. I think that changed sometime around the 90s but I have a feeling the family are still involved in someway and may have even taken back ownership. I must check. Oris was the name of the little stream that ran alongside the factory. The name on the dial may not be Oris, they used very uncreative spelling variations lol. Siro (oh dear my neighbour's five year old could have done better ) Oriosa ( very marginally better). They were much better at watchmaking. There probably are a few more but I dread to think what they might be. Sorry Oris, I love your watches but your name branding stunk. If it is OWC then they are ok, I have loads of them still waiting to be repaired. I have 3 Oris tank watches, 2 from the 50s and 1 70s. I paid less than a fiver for each one. They look lovely although the 50s both need a new crystal and have to fit a shaped bezel. The 70s is in almost mint condition and probably worth 20 fold what I paid, the others probably a lot more. Both had Radium lume on them, I've recently noticed my uncotted fingers are starting to glow.

Which is not a radioactivity test. Even if it was radium, and likey isn't, there would be no risk, because you need to eat or inhale that dailt for a very long time before the amount could become dangerous. Have a read of our pinned topic

The practice of UK Time, aka Timex Dundee, luming dials with radium continued on in to the 1950s and 1960s. Furthermore the company was not averse to dumping unwanted radioactive dials by the thousand, straight in to the North sea. This is from a Sunday Post article on the subject. So it would appear that radium waste was 'disposed of' both in the North sea and the Atlantic for many years. As to the danger of an individual dial, I would suggest that this is relatively low. I would however be a lot more concerned if one of those drums were to wash up on the shore. The only way to know for sure if your dial has radium would be to check it with a geiger counter, since the zinc based material in the lume degrades over time and it looses its luminous properties. This means that while the lume is still radioactive, (the most stable isotope being radium-226, which has a half-life of 1600 years and decays into radon gas, also radioactive), it is no longer luminous, so you can't simply assume that if it doesn't glow, then it isn't radioactive. The watch you show above, is probably from the late 1950s, or at least before 1963, because it doesn't have a date code on the dial. The case back style suggests 1950s rather than 1960s. If I were to take a guess I would say 1959. Some earlier Timexes have an ink-stamped date code on the inside caseback consisting of one letter and one number. The numeral denotes the year of manufacture as follows: 1959-8, 1960-7, 1961-6, 1962-5 1963-4 1964-3 1965-2 1966-1 1967-9. So if you look inside the case on the case back, there may be an inked stamp mark with some letters on it that gives a more exact date. These however have often been cleaned from or rubbed off the case back. It may have radium, or it may simply have coloured hands, or it may once have had radium and this has been replaced at some stage in the past. Whatever the story is, I would have little major concern about the lume, so long as you are careful when servicing the watch. Read through the rest of this thread for more info on this subject. The levels of radiation present are likely to be perhaps a few times background. Don't ingest the lume, don't sniff the dial, wash your hands after handling it and you should be fine.

Hi. From the little research I have done it appears that Timex watches from the 50s and early 60s "could" have radium in the hands/dials. I think this is an early 60s watch. There is no glowing lume now. I don't see any radium burn on the dial. Am I OK to start taking the watch apart. Any help on the year would be great also. Cheers & Thanks in advance, Fuzzy

There are plenty of my fellow nerds on here, so I imagine at least a few of you have already seen today's XKCD. If not: www.xkcd.com for the latest https://xkcd.com/2568/ if you're reading this in the future for the specific cartoon in question. FYI, all XKCD cartoons have a bonus punchline if you hover your mouse over the image in the mouseover text. It's not directly applicable to the topic at hand, but it sent me down a rabbit hole until I found this (they sell modern spinthariscopes if you're interested): https://unitednuclear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_76&products_id=487 I don't know what it will do to assuage any concerns, but it will tell you if there's anything at all you might be concerned about to whatever degree you have decided is warranted. Might be able to give you a clue to the magnitude of the concern/non-concern in question if you've looked at enough dials to get a feel for what's "normal". I have a bunch of steel stock I rescued from dumpster at a decommissioning hospital when I worked at a software startup located in the former finance office (long story there) that I've always worried might be radioactive. I recall reading a while back about a rash of recycled steel coming out of China that was wildly radioactive due to its past life in medical equipment, so if you work with metal on a more macro scale at all, another potential use. There is a consolidated mess of a thread about radium and radiation, so there is clearly some interest in the subject. Mods, please do not add this to the thread. That will make this information unsearchable, impossible to find, and it will disappear forever into the void that is the forum storage device, costing Mark money while returning nothing to community.

Interesting and aged dials can bump up the value of the watch - especially if it's an old Rolex Daytona or similar. But, for cheaper watches, it all depends on how it looks, and personal taste. It's the same with classic cars - they never left the factory looking 'old and aged', but some think that's how they should look. I've been looking for a replacement dial for a 60s Certina 23-20 for a couple of years - it looks "nicely aged", but has a scratch, which doesn't look so nice. (I'm still not sure whether radium should be replaced on dials. I have replaced it on a couple of 'cheaper' watches I have, but have left a Universal Geneve untouched, so far)

I recently bought this Rotary. From the colour and condition of the lume, I assumed that the radium lume had been replaced. But it is radium. You can see it has marked the dial at 8 o'clock. Not as bad as this one though - I'd put my lead lined underwear on before going near that one !

The problem as I don't know of regular luminescence material goes bad with time? Really the best way is with the Geiger counter or something it detects radiation. But vanish away I do have to agree they have that look of radium. Radium as the unfortunate problem of burning things including the florescent material that was mixed with. If the hands stay in one place for too long a lot of times the burn the dial you'll see marks were the hands were. In some extreme cases innovative and will burn the crystal. Problem and watch repair is? You can have a name on the dial and a name on the back of the movement but neither of which may have actually made the movement itself. If you're lucky a movement mark will be found under the balance wheel. Sometimes it's under the dial and worst-case if we know the diameter the watch and you take a nice picture under the dial of the setting parts we can possibly find the watch that way.

There's no need to be unduly worried, but do be aware of possible dangers The main concern is not to inhale any radium dust. You don't want alpha particle emitters in the body - it's what the Russians used to kill Alexander Litnivenko. No need to panic though. I would recommend wearing a mask when handling the dial/hands and wash you hands thoroughly afterwards. Store them in plastic bags until you need them. When assembled in the watch, the glass and metal case block the more dangerous alpha particles but not the less dangerous gamma. As to the dangers of wearing the watch, it's your choice : Here is a Universal Geneve I have with radium dial and hands (I want to keep this one original) which emits about 1 microsievert/h. (this is quite low for a radium watch - it could be tens to hundreds times higher) Normal background radiation is about 0.15 - 0.4 microsieverts/h. So if I wore it 10 hour/day for a year = 3.6 millisieverts. Which is about the same as you get from background radiation. The lowest dose for which cancer is clearly evident is 100 millisieverts / year. The radiation is all cumulative, so best not to add too much (x-rays, flying, CT scans etc) unless you have to. My choice is, I'm happy to wear this watch occasionally but I don't use it as a daily watch. If that was my watch, I'd remove the radium from the hands - which looks to be most of it, leave the dial, and don't sleep with it on ! This is worth a read : https://www.vintagewatchstraps.com/luminous.php

That looks like a lot of radium on the hands and dial. Take care : I wear a mask and gloves when working on radium dials. I work on some plastic sheet and everything I use for cleaning - q-tips, tissue, water, etc gets double bagged for disposal. All tools washed under the tap. Radium paint easily dissolves in water. I've just 'cleaned' the radium from the dial and hands of an old Rotary watch. I use water on q-tips to remove it from the dial, and use the ultrasonic to remove it from the hands. Then check it with a geiger counter, and re-clean until it doesn't detect any radiation.

Indeed. Whenever the topic of insecticides, pesticides, herbicides, radium, falling airplane parts, spontaneous combustion...etc. come up in conversation, I routinely point (anecdotally) to my Dad who died at 93. He was deployed overseas during WWII (no warning labels on anything), worked in the oil field, routinely sprayed chlordane on the yard whenever some bug irritated him, sprayed his vegetable garden with whatever killer spray he had on hand and worked on watches with radium for several decades. I am not like my Dad--am far more circumspect about things that can damage or kill, but I still have volatile chemicals in my lab/watchroom. Sometimes I even use a pair of these WITHOUT wearing safety glasses--realizing all the time that I am throwing caution to the wind!!