With patina being all the rage, I wanted to inquire about the subtle differences of painted vs. relume vs. original.

In regards to painted dials, what are their characteristics? Do they still emit a faint glow if charged with a flashlight? Or is all of the old luminous material removed prior to painting?

In regards to relume, are there people out there using tritium with the ability to color it? If so, is there any way to differentiate a relumed tritium dial with faux patina from an original one? I know that lumi dials are easy to spot because they glow like a torch.

Has anyone seen a period correct original dial with patinated relume that was indistinguishable from original?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

 

I think the most obvious tell, and the one that puts me on alert, is when the hands and dial all match perfectly - too perfectly. On an 'honest' watch, the hands usually seem to age differently and show different colours.

There seems to be some trends on speedies, though I understand from more seasoned members that there are no hard rules.. for instance, the later 2998s seem to keep their lume pretty well and it ages to that nice orangey brown colour. Later 321's, say from 145.012 onwards generally are a bit more yellowy in colour. Not a hard and fast rule, more of a generalization.

With regards to tells on a dial alone, there's some that say shinny, smooth lume plots are an indication of a reluming or repainting. Aged lume appears a little more crystallized.

I'm sure more experienced gents will be along with more, but those are some of my thoughts and observations..

 

Interested to know if tritium is still available for reluming - I would think it would be difficult to obtain in any quantity re: radioactivity.

 

When I relume dials, I use luminova powder but not too much. So they just glow a little.

 

When you relume a dial, can you tell a difference between yours and an original? If the lumi barely glows, seems that is close to alchemy!

One thing I find interesting is that all of my Omega tritium dials still slightly glow in the pitch black, where none of my vtg Rolex tritium glow at all.

 

Can I see a difference ? Sometimes it's very, very hard, even if I closely inspect them...

 

Is that one you've relumed? Good god that's excellent!

 

@Pianist: If this dial is relumed, you've done an excellent job!

Isn't Tritium getting faster dark in comparing to relumed Superluminova-indexes?