Review of Omega Seamaster 300 "Big Triangle" from 1968

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You are one stroppy customer. To coin a phrase, ye cannae change the laws of physics'. The radioactive component of tritium lume is as good as inert after 2 -3 half lives. A watch made int eh 1960s has experienced about 5. As I have mentioned several times, if you excite tritium lume it will glow briefly. It will not persist. Unless that is it has been messed with, ie replaced with SL.

I should have tested how long it glows. I haven't claimed anywhere that the lume is glowing any longer than "briefly".

It glowed nicely for a photograph after minutes of direct LED exposure.
 
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I should have tested how long it glows. I haven't claimed anywhere that the lume is glowing any longer than "briefly".

It glowed nicely for a photograph after minutes of direct LED exposure.
Fine. So why the passive aggressive rant about Finlands premier super duper Omega watch guy?
 
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Fine. So why the passive aggressive rant about Finlands premier super duper Omega watch guy?

"Rant"?

The watch is owned by the company who has the official Omega service and they have a watchmaker who has highest Omega licence.

It's not a rant, it's a fact.

They claim the dial is original. Not to claim this forum doesn't have expertise, but I'd rather take their word for it.

I haven't made any claims about how long the lume lasts. I don't know where this came to the discussion in the first place.

I've had a Tudor Sub with tritium dial which had 90% dead lume. I was surprised about the glow myself. But it's simply not true to claim that all old tritium dials lose their lume in 50 years. There are many examples proving otherwise.

I started the "bad vibes" with my comment to Edison. For that I apologized. Not much more I can do.

Wouldn't it be interesting to discuss and research the tritium instead of continuing with negative tone?
 
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But it's simply not true to claim that all old tritium dials lose their lume in 50 years. There are many examples proving otherwise ...

Wouldn't it be interesting to discuss and research the tritium instead of continuing with negative tone?
I definitely think it would be a good idea for you to research tritium lume. Or maybe even take the time to handle a few dozen vintage watches, test them personally, and truly understand how various types of lume behave. That way you won't perpetuate inaccurate information, e.g. confusing transient emission of the phosphor after charging with spontaneous emission associated with tritium. There is already a lot of confusion and misinformation on this topic, we don't need more disseminated by watch "reviewers".
Edited:
 
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OK. My Question again: You handled that Omega Sea 300. Is the date wheel`s base colour white or silver? you must know. just tell us.
 
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Or did you not handle that Seamaster 300 BT? Only had the pictures ?
 
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Dude what is with that reply? Do you talk to people like that normally?
My comment was on the bezel being too new and I DID NOT say anything about authenticity. BTW, my real name is Edison and I don't have a relation to the inventor!!
 
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This feels a bit like the first time I came to the Supreme Court as a young lawyer and I was completely torn apart by 5 experienced judges within the hour. It was educational though. 📖 Maybe you started on the wrong foot here... 😉
 
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This feels a bit like the first time I came to the Supreme Court as a young lawyer and I was completely torn apart by 5 experienced judges within the hour. It was educational though. 📖 Maybe you started on the wrong foot here... 😉

Really? What was "torn apart"? Please specify.

Let's see:

Claim:

"Tritium can't glow after 50 years".

False.

Tritium dial on SM300 can actually glow after 50 years.

And why SM300 dials glow is explained here:

"The level of radioactivity present in tritium halves every 12.5 years, when the level of radioactivity drops enough it will no longer agitate the luminous compounds in the paint. UV exposure will cause the lume to glow for a limited time after the radioactivity levels drop below the level required but it’s not tritium that is causing the glow.
The paint might glow but it is not glowing in the manner intended.
Surface area and thickness of the application can also influence the perceived lume brightness just as with Luminova.
The Big Triangle has large hands and plots with thick paint, this will mean bright lume. Compare this with a Submariner of the same age. The SM will seem much brighter."

Here's the watch of the owner who wrote this in another forum.

34a4b541685bb7f18b45372db71b4dc8.jpg
 
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Where did someone claim "Tritium can't glow after 50 years". I must have missed that.
 
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This was said in this thread by another person with over 14K posts:

"Yes, very strange comments in the article about original tritium lume still being active after 50+ years. Even if an article isn't intended to be technical, it shouldn't be blatant nonsense."

Well indeed these watches seem to have lume active on the original tritium dials.

So what was "torn apart" here, other than this false claim?

Sure it's not as bright as luminova but they really glow rather well (it seems). Of course there's variation between individual watches.
 
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This was said in this thread by another person with over 14K posts:

"Yes, very strange comments in the article about original tritium lume still being active after 50+ years. Even if an article isn't intended to be technical, it shouldn't be blatant nonsense."

Well indeed these watches seem to have lume active on the original tritium dials.

So what was "torn apart" here, other than this false claim?

Sure it's not as bright as luminova but they really glow rather well (it seems). Of course there's variation between individual watches.

It's amazing that after all that has been written, you still haven't taken the time to understand the difference between emission by the phosphor after excitation by UV (which has no relation to how tritiated luminous paint actually functioned in practice) and functional spontaneous emission of active tritium lume. And you continue to make these silly false claims using the word "glow", which is meaningless, and calling the lume "active", which is BS. Even when the phenomena are actually explained in the posts you are quoting you apparently don't make the effort to read and understand them. Or perhaps you are just trolling us at this point. 🤨
 
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The wording in the review says "The glow on this watch is so strong that I thought the material had to be luminova from a Omega service dial. But no, it's the original tritium dial which was verified by the owner."

What is "false" in this statement and what should be changed so it wouldn't be "blatant nonsense"?

Just clarify that I'll make the edit.
 
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@JPE_2112 : are you sure you want this one thread to go on forever ?

If you are indeed genuinely interested in OF as a place to enjoy your watch passion, you will see it has a lot to offer. And if you plan to still be active or contribute after that thread, I think it would be good to slow down a bit now.
 
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I made a stupid remark to Edison. It was my fault. Bad behaviour, crappy day. For that I apologized.

What happened after that was interesting.

These original SM300 tritium dials still glow. The rest is just meaningless semantics. These came with both black and white date wheel. Nothing wrong with that, either.

Most (if not all) claims and veiled claims in this thread were more like school bullying by the "regular buddies". I don't care though... just find it interesting. How can people take watches and hobbies so seriously, it's amusing.

I never ran away from anything in my life. If someone has a personal grudge with me, feel free to pm and I'm sure it can be solved.

But you can close the thread and even remove my account if you want. Obviously my content wasn't received so well so it's not a big loss. 😁
 
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The wording in the review says "The glow on this watch is so strong that I thought the material had to be luminova from a Omega service dial. But no, it's the original tritium dial which was verified by the owner."

What is "false" in this statement and what should be changed so it wouldn't be "blatant nonsense"?

Just clarify that I'll make the edit.
JPE, there are a few ways that you could get this kind of glow for photographs. They will flare briefly under intense light and fade very quickly (I’m assuming in the trio pic above the other two watches continued to glow for minutes after the exposure and the 300 was dark within seconds), or a UV torch off mixed with ambient light and a long exposure would give a similar result (and because the light from the torch itself is outside the visible spectrum, you wouldn’t see any trace of it- just the excited material).
As for the comments by the writer, he could have been just commenting on the brightness at the moment of taking the picture and not relating it to the time it took to fade- hence the wording.
Some of the respondents here are professional chemists and scientists- not to mention having decades of experience with vintage watches- so I tend to believe their opinions over something I may find on the web.
As for this thread- you came in hot and insulted another member- that has poisoned the well on this conversation, people here don’t like a bully. Perhaps we pump the brakes and move on to other threads and topics and just chalk this up to a late night and too much to drink.
 
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As for this thread- you came in hot and insulted another member- that has poisoned the well on this conversation, people here don’t like a bully. Perhaps we pump the brakes and move on to other threads and topics and just chalk this up to a late night and too much to drink.

Yes. It was my bad.

Now let's just forget about it. I have better things to do than continue arguing about meaningless semantics... I'm going to rewatch the 1985 Baltic Sea marine weather reports. After that I'm going to see how the paint dries on my garage walls... then I'm going to save the world with my PlayStation.

Have a good evening.
 
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Yes. It was my bad.

Now let's just forget about it. I have better things to do than continue arguing about meaningless semantics... I'm going to rewatch the 1985 Baltic Sea marine weather reports. After that I'm going to see how the paint dries on my garage walls... then I'm going to save the world with my PlayStation.

Have a good evening.
Ok, we didn’t get it.
Best of luck to you and your future endeavors.