Just bought a 2531.80.00. Clean watch off dealer. How can you tell if it is tritium or luminova..? I haven't received watch yet. Somebody told me that the luminova are 1120 mov and tritium are 1109. Any help would be appreciated. I am a noob.

 

You may be able to tell by the age - if you know the serial number you can get an estimate of age - tritium ended in the late 90's.

The information you were told about the 1120 being luminova and 1109 being tritium is incorrect. There were most certainly tritium versions with the 1120.

You can also tell by how the markers glow when exposed to light.

Cheers, Al

 

This article written in 2004 is a detailed review of your watch model and mentions Superluminova. Just based on the pictures, I'd guess that's what your watch has. A lot of tritium lumed Seamasters of similar or slightly older vintage have distinctly yellowed lume - a sort of "fried egg" look. Also the red end of the second hand may fade to orange or even pinky-white in older/earlier models.

Nice watch

 

To show the difference in colours the mouse is referring to, the two 25318000's laying on the right are examples of luminova (left) and tritium (right).



You can see the dial markers on the right one are brownish in colour...

 

Thanks for this interesting picture.
My 2531.80 also got this brownish color.
But the dial is signed SWISS MADE not T SWISS MADE T. Are these Tritium Dots or SL?

If it would be a Rolex Explorer II the price would be great for brownish dots

 

These dials were tritium initially but not marked as such. The hands are also tritium, but the lume on those tends to be more of a green tinge and they don't age the same way that the dial lume does. On these early models the pip in the bezel was also tritium.

Cheers, Al

 

Thanks. Bezel is already aftermarket. Original is only light blue any more.
For me as a fan of plexi and tritium only the glas is wrong