Saw this online and was wondering if the dial is original or not

 

Stardust dial

 

I like it

 

Yep original.

 

That is extraordinary beautifully aged dial..not often they age evenly like that.

 

So it's a beautiful stardust dial with "T - SWISS MADE - T".

I see no tritium on the markers or hands, none whatsoever.

Let's start again.

 

It's a beautifully repainted stardust dial?

 

Impressive how all of that white print is incredibly crisp and clear, given how badly the dial has degraded isn't it Jim?

 

And yet I still like it. Even if re-printed, that's an impressive job. Not really a hack redial.

 

Pretty sure those hands are wrong. Probably fitted to work with the white paint?

 

While skepticism of the watch is warranted, "T" notations on a dial without corresponding lume do not automatically disqualify it from having been original.

Manufacturers occasionally used stock of such dials on non-luminous models. Not at all common, but not unheard of, either.

 

Ditto

 

I still think the dial is original.

The lume on these was a small dot on the end of the markers. Easily lost on a dial with this patina.

 

Almost certainly incorrect. Dials with black (sometimes Onyx) filled markers rarely featured lume, as they were designed to be "formal". But they did typically feature the same type of hands, unlike this one.

Furthermore, and more importantly, it would make no sense at all to have lume dots on the dial, and no lume on the hands!

 

Disagree. The hands could easily have been changed.

Ok this example has white markers but the same principles apply.

 

So your theory is that the radium was lost, with apparently no trace (exceedingly unlikely), and the hands were also changed? That's a stretch.

Furthermore, the hands on the one that you have posted above do not appear to have been originally radium-filled. If they were, where is the depression into which it would have been placed on the minute hand?

 

I don't think they're radium, I'm saying tritium.

 

Yes, I meant tritium (or "lume"). Do you think that it was simply applied onto flat hands?

 

I don't think it's too much of a jump to think that with a dial with this much patina/damage that the hands were changed.

I do admit that it's strange that there is no trace of the lume on the dial.

 

Looking at just the dial, do you think it refinished? I don't.