Great photos. Thanks for sharing.

 

Sorry for the late reply. Yes, on my chronograph dial type with luminous numbers in a steel case for 1936, all hands should be blue steel.

 

Bernard took my watch and had it for several hours, when Fatima took me back to see him, he gave an ok smile and nod and said good. I tried to ask Bernard about the registration error on the right sub dial, but the Fatima who was interpreting was busy. John Goldberger examined the dial visually, then pulled out an ultraviolet LED light and showed the numbers light up dark green brightly. Then, Bernard pulled out a vintage looking Geiger counter that looked like a Dr No James Bond movie prop and measured the radiation levels to show me it was radium. Two other very experienced collectors pointed out how the ink on the dial is raised and the vertical surfaces of all sides of the letters are very squared surfaces almost like if the letters are applied. This was only visible with a very high powered loop. They said no redialler could produce that level of quality back then when radium was used. And faking the age of the radium burns, oxidation around the edges of the sub dials, and shrinkage of the lumin on the numerals is “impossible”. John smiled in a friendly way and said “that was easy”.

 

I wish I had took a video of Bernard’s workstation. The workstation not only has access to LEA, but it is also equipped with a microscope to digitally scan dials and display them on a 17inch monitor you saw on the previous posts. With the workstation, technicians can compare dials against known bad and known good dials magnified to an image more than 10inches in diameter.

 

It would really be interesting if you could take (and share) highly magnified pictures of what you are saying. It also highlights there may be instances where pictures give obvious answers (eg with crappy redials) but the ultimate test is real life inspection.

 

I will try what I can with the photographic equipment I have. I don't have anything that can provide 25x magnification, but maybe we can see enough with 5x and with altering the contrast of the images afterwards to bring out some of the details like faint radium burn that looks like shadows of the hands.

I don't have a UV light, so I can't demonstrate that trick, which I think is needed in addition to measuring radiation. I suppose radioactive paint could be put under a dial, but if both the dial reacts to UV light with the right color and is radioactive, we know it is most likely radium lumen and not some trick under the dial or lumen material that glows at the right color under UV light.



Red: Radium burns, you can see the marks are straight lines and radiate from the center.
Purple: The rims of the sub dials have oxidized
Green: Radium paint is hand applied. Takes a really steady hand to apply the paint onto something that small. The lumen also has shrunk a bit in places likely from the drying over a long period of time.

I don't have a photograph with high enough magnification to show the print quality of the logo. This I will have to try with a macro lens and tripod later on. Below image is an old image I took with an iPhone that doesn't have enough pixels to blow up this big. But you can see the print is very sharp for an old dial.

 

This is why I love longines! Thank you for sharing

 

Thanks for sharing. That's absolutely awesome. I love when experienced collectors sharing tips and tricks not just " its from my experience".
love it.

 

Fantastic post!

 

So can longings redial a watch with the authentic style it came with? Even ones from the 40s or 50s?

 

Please mind my ignorance, but where was the gathering held?

 

Yes and it will be accurate; however, the dial will look mint condition and looks like a computer created it. Flawless. Great for post 1960, but doesn't feel right for older vintage. I don't know who does the dials, likely their dial supplier. As you know Longines never made dials in house.

What is more amazing is what they do with movements. Bernard is rebuilding each part of the 1830s pocket watch 5xx from scratch. The dial, case, hands and backplate are salvageable, but all the rest of the gears, jewels, and levers are going to be made by him. With watches before roughly about 1930, watchmakers took raw blank parts (we saw them) and hand finished them to fit together. So each movement was built like an early Rolls Royce, one man built the whole movement hand adjusting everything to fit and time. This is one of the reasons 13.33z where much more expensive to make.

 

St. Imier

 

Hi @Seiji ... it was a pleasure to see you at the Longines meeting
It was a beautiful day spent with friends and lots of fantastic watches

... and thank you very much for the excellent Longines welcome

 

I had a great time, I should thank you all for also celebrating my birthday. Could you private message me with your true name? Want to stay in touch. Looking forwards to the next gtg.