Dirty Dozen Omega - Any saw combat? Vintage Omega Watches

Promethium was also used on the Seiko gen 1 & 2 RAF watches from circa 1984 well into the 1990's.

“Well, as every proper military watch enthusiast knows, the only ironclad rule in this hobby is that there’s always an exception to every rule—except for the rule about exceptions, which, of course, also has its exceptions. So if Omega ever did make a Dirty Dozen with a promethium dial, it would be entirely consistent with the grand tradition of watch collecting: the more impossible, the more likely someone’s got one in a sock drawer somewhere (next to the Holy Grail, for me a WWW Grana with a P-dial)." 😉

Interesting. Why would they do this well in the 1980s and 1990s when everyone else has moved to tritium?

The continued use of promethium lume on Seiko Gen 1 and Gen 2 RAF watches in the 1980s and 1990s, despite the broader industry's shift to tritium, was primarily due to specific procurement, regulatory, and operational requirements within the UK Ministry of Defence. Promethiumoffered lower radioactivity and a sufficiently bright initial glow, albeit with a much shorter half-life than tritium.

In some cases, promethium was favored because it posed fewer handling and storage restrictions under transport and health regulations compared to tritium and could be serviced on a predictable schedule due to its rapid fading. Additionally, standardization across government contracts and the desire to avoid cross-contamination with sensitive equipment (especially in aviation and submarine service) influenced the MoD to maintain promethium use on selected models even as tritium became more common elsewhere.

Thus, the decision reflected a balance between operational safety, regulatory frameworks, and supply logistics rather than purely technical superiority.

2914-1 SC, including Radium sparles on the dial

British Military RAF / Ref. 2777-1 SC / 53 / Thin Arrow - Radium Dial ​

Thank you. I'm learning a lot from this thread!

An other Omega W.W.W dial variant, fitted with a VB dial; no clue if it has seen some action though



To my knowledge, two watches were fitted with VB dial only:

• Omega 10033
• Record 10034

Two watches were fitted with NSN printed on the dial:

• Record
• IWC

In addition, various MoD dials were made with the brand name reprinted on it.

Here you see the Royal Airforce Seiko Chronograph Gen 1 from 1988 with the Promethium dial (C24).

Thanks for sharing. Sorry for my ignorance, but what's a VB dial?

Thanks for sharing this. 1988 is really quite modern!

May I ask if the chronograph seconds hand is the one at the 6 o'clock subdial or the large central seconds hand? Thanks 😊
Also, if the subdial at 3 o'clock records tenths of a second, then I'm guessing that the little hand would be spinning around like crazy when the chronograph is in use.

Hammer price excluding fees: 21.000€!

That's actually not too bad (not that I would buy at this price!). These watches seem to have gone up in value individually anyway, and obviously it would have taken years of effort to collect the whole set.

Hello chaps! Bit late, but better late than never.

The Watch Wristlet Waterproof almost certainly did not see campaign service in WW2. Anecdotal evidence (read Konrad Knirims excellent, if expensive, tome 'British Military Timepieces') has them delivered from the manufacturers roughly around the same time Adolf took his 9mm headache pill!

If you read George Macdonald Fraser's 'Quartered safe out here', one of the best MIlitary autobographies of WW2 (and the later stages of the Burma campaign) Troops were being sent back home before Oppenheimers toys were used, as Slim had throughly crushed the Japs south of Miektila in the sriung of '45. I severely doubt they would have shipped brand new kit to a Theatre of operations that was being wound down (I spent 17 years in the British Army.. stores are for storing not for sending out all over the globe!)

And then after the War hundreds of thousands of items of kit were being sold off at Military surplus auctions (anyone been to Lawrence Corner or Silvermans in the 1980's?). Thousands of watches amonst them! including WWW's and all manner of RAF Pilots watches.The chances are probably 50/50 that if you have a Radium dialled all original WWW, with matching case numbers, it probably never left RAOC stores before being backloaded and flogged off.

So what was left? well what was left very probably saw service in Palestine, almost definitely in Malaya, the Suez, and in Operation Claret against the Indonesians. Defintley in Aden (I have seen Imperial War Museum photos) and beyond. As stated here before, they were allegedly issued for Op Corporate, The Falkalnds war. And then Op Grapple (Iraq) and Iraq war Part Deux

There is a Defence standard document published in 1980 that listed the last four makes of WWW that were no longer being 'supported' by stores or REME repair. THose are shown in a table already posted here (with the four NSN's (NATO stock Numbers)) IWC, Omega, Record and Timor.

Now what this means is that RAOC will keep a hold of those items for a rainy day, and they probably still had a supply of some of the other WWW's in 'mothballs' Just think 1950's Green goddesses, held in storage for when Fireman Sam goes on strike or the WW2 Paddington bear/'In which we serve' RN Duffelcoat that I was issued as an Instructor at the Royal SChool of MIlitary Engineering in 1993. (lovely and toasty warm far better than DPM Parkas)

So of those that survived the Army surplus pogrom of the late 40's, they were serviced by REME sub contractors in batches (which is why you dont always get matching numbers on some of the models). And as stated above sometime in the late 50's when it was decided that Radium = baaaaaaaaad /Other Isotopes = goooooooood! Some were swapped out for Promethium and then Tritium.

I have a Buren and Lemania with (P) dials, But have also seen Grana, JLC and Eterna with (P) dials. All of the watches were given a VB Number (as stated previously) from VB10025 to VB10037 (VB10025 was for Enicar... which lost the contract becuase they were supplying shell/bomb timers to the Boche, the utter shower of cads!)

Some radium dials had the Radium scraped off and replaced with Tritium (I have a Rhodesian Buren like this), but most of the others had new MOD dials. As mentioned above two had VB numbers instead of the Manufacturer's Signature, and two had the NSN's. These incidentally were Interim Stock Numbers. The WWW's had a group NSN of W10/6645-99-523-8390 (6645-99 still being used today for British Military watches)

Hope this may be of help. Geo (my WWW's below including two lovely Omegas -one on my wrist right now)