So I've told myself since I bought my Speedy about 2.5 years ago that I was fine with the way the hands are on it - I have a tritium chono hand, but the hour and minute hands have been replaced. Interestingly the color of all three is pretty similar, but a black light confirms that the hour and minute are luminova (I won't say superluminova because they only glow for about a max of 10 minutes) but the light decay of the chrono hand matches the dial exactly. Ideally I'd like to find just an hour and minute hand that match the still greenish lume of my -76. I would think these colors would be slightly less desirable, but I since I would want ones that match the condition of the chrono hand, I really am not sure.

I mean ideally I should just leave well enough alone, especially since I don't have a local watchmaker to swap the hands. But all of you here have convinced me that I'm missing something with my watch by not having period correct hands

So looking at some of the below pictures again, especially the one under the blacklight, the chrono hand seems to have the same green color as the minute and hour hands, compared to the more intense green of the lume plots. But the weird thing is that when you turn off the black light and watch the light decay, the chrono hand decays at the same rate as the tritium plots. Hmmm....

 

I'm not sure whether to take the lack of response as a consensus that I do indeed need new old hands, or if I should leave well enough alone.

I guess it's a moot point for now - no budget for watch mods currently.

 

My .02 is to leave it as is, at least until servicing time. Then you can reassess and make a decision. I realize that originality is king and can be attractive aesthetically too. But if you can enjoy it without spending more money on it, then do it.

I wore an 80s Speedmaster with replacement hands for a long time. I honestly didn’t even know (wasn’t disclosed when I bought it and some things take a bit of time to learn). It looked good while I wore it, and now one of my close buds is rocking it and doesn’t mind. I thought about sourcing a set of hands once I found out they weren’t original, but the reality is it wasn’t worth it for me on that piece. Like you, I have no relationship with a watchmaker. And spending more money on the piece I owned wasn’t really something I was interested in. Had it been an heirloom, I would have dropped the dough. But... mine wasn’t