Omega sea master 300m professional diver caliber 1154

Your watch was made sometime from 1994-1997. No earlier or later date makes any sense at all.

Your dial is tritium, while the third picture you showed is of super luminova. The second dial is what yours SHOULD look like now after aging, but something (moisture?) discolored the circular lume plots into that moldy dark brown. Surprisingly, whatever happened did t affect the 12, 6, and 9 o’clock markers.

Why? What else do you hope to achieve?

The reason that some of these markers turn yellow or even moldy green like yours, is because the markers themselves contain tritium (a radioactive form of hydrogen) within the structure of the paint itself. Tritium emits beta particles via Protons decaying into neutrons; a very high energy electron that energizes the luminescent material that is also contained within the marker.

So as long as the tritium can emit radioactive energy, the markers can stay glowing in a sort of "always on" state.


The downside is that once hydrogen decays in this fashion, it is now effectively a helium, as the nucleus contains two protons and one neutron. Helium doesn't like being bound in material like this... so your paint is literally breaking down at the molecular level, which causes it to discolor (patina)

As for why the circle around the edge is discolored similarly, my guess would be a combination of oxidation and perhaps a small amount of water ingress. Beta particles aren't dangerous to people but it is possible that they could interact with molecules on the dial itself. But some of these older paints are less resistant to damage from ultraviolet light as well.

Cream through almost orange are the most common colors that tritium dials patina to. Sometimes tritium material will turn lime green (this is common on mid 90s seamaster handsets and some earlier 70s dials).... I wonder, and let me clarify that this is literally just me wondering so it's a straight guess- I wonder if this moldy green color occurs as water molecules interacts with the paint as it's decaying and possibly replace some of the missing atoms in the structure.

Anyway hope that helps. Omega quit using tritium as a luminescent material in 1997 and moved over to Super luminova, which is excited by ultraviolet light that is not radioactive and does not undergo any sort of radioactive decay.

If the faded inert tritium lume annoys you and you truly love the watch, you could send it to Omega (or a watchmaker with a parts account) for a full service and request and hand and dial change. The new items would use Superluminova which is the whiter compound you have noticed that does not deteriorate. The cost would be maybe £300/€300 or so on top of the full service cost so you could be looking at 4 figures all in: not cheap! As I say it may or may not be worth it to you. An alternative, as you suggest above is to have the dial and hands relumed but it might not be much cheaper and might not lead to a perfect result. The ebay dial you show is better than yours but also tritium so will Iikely darken further and not glow at all.

Normally collectors would shy away from swapping a patinated tritium dial for a shiny new SL one, but where the lume is mouldy and grey green it's less of an issue, particularly on a nouveau-vintage piece like this which won't look as out of place with fresh working lume as a 60s piece.

Omega will only replace with a SuperLuminova dial. Never tritium. The third pic you showed in your first post is a SuperLuminova dial.