I'm hoping to gather some thoughts from experienced collectors regarding this Speedmaster Pro 145.012-67 dial below.

This example was priced high which was appropriate for a Speedmaster in this type of condition.

On first glance, it seemed like a near mint dial. On closer inspection with UV and loupe, I'm having some concerns about some peculiar issues...

1. Near mint dials with perfect lume/hands are rare. But again, I was paying the premium for such a rare find, such as this one.

2. The lume/hands will glow green under UV and hold a very brief charge, maybe 30 seconds - this is pretty standard with vintage Omega. However, I've seen plenty of relumed Rolex's with clever lume recipes that are made to exhibit the same lighting properties. The hands here also glow a slight shade bluer than the dial. However, this may just be an optical illusion with UV blending the white hands (blue) with the lume (green).

3. Generally on these stepped dials, you see a slight break or indentation on the lume/hands where the dial steps down. On this dial, under the loupe, it looks more like the lume is spread thick and evenly across both levels. I'm not sure if the original application applied this thick. Many closeup examples I referenced are very thin applications.

4. Lume is not applied "sharp." I'm not sure if these 1967 dials were originally hand painted. I know what flaking tritium looks like which often leaves wavy looking lume and patches of the white below, but I'm not entirely sure how to decipher this dial, as the lume "spills" over in some area, i.e.: 12-hour and 6-hour in the photo below.

What are you thoughts? Are these pretty standard characteristics of a near mint dial? Or is this too good to be true - a relume job?

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Good catch on the "step" thing. Doesn't match the hands too well either. Looks like a relume.

 

I would love to hear some more opinions about the break in the lume at the step. I've been wary of the no break lume, but I've also seen plenty of legit ones with no break.

 

We might need the big guns to chime in on this one, guys who've seen many, many of these dials. @Spacefruit @gemini4 @speedy4ever any ideas on this one?

 

I would like to know as well. From my reading of OF, blotchy at the end lumes, thick lumes, and shrinking lumes are legit. But I wonder.

 

My gut feeling on first sight is that it's wrong. It just looks too puffy and uneven.
However, genuine, original lume can also look similar to this and migrate across the plots, presumably due to moisture etc.
Nevertheless, id sway towards it being redone.

 

I would lean towards redone for this one too.

but still curious about the break/no break at the step and if that's a tell or not.

 

A $100 Geiger counter is a good investment. No reading from relumed lumenova. Low readings from original tritium. I've seen numerous blotchy original lumed dials from this era. If the dial is mint and the blotchy lume uniform, I would guess the lume is original. Very hard to tell for sure.

 

This is the watch in question. I had it checked out and of course back my watches but please take a look and see if this is indeed a relume as I myself would be surprised given the condition and everything when acquired was top notch. Dave is a good man and I will take care of him if anything is found to be otherwise.

 

Certainly looks good from that pic George.

 

I have not had a similar experience. A radiations officer at a local hospital, who used a very expensive counter, could get no readings on my Tritium dial watches.

 

to the OP, George is one of the good guys. he will stand by his watches. I'd jump on it.

 

This comes back to 'buy the seller'.

If the watch is from @Kringkily whos held it in his hand and thinks it's original, I'd be much more inclined to think that's right.

 

We must be cautious with macro pictures. Sometimes they show defects that are actually normal for a vintage speedy.
To my eyes this watch has not been relumed.
There are many variations of tritium dials, especially with the 145.012's. I have already seen original 145.012's with thin lume, others with thicker lume like this one. Sometimes, the lume does not entirely cover the white base of the indexes. But again, all these watches had never been relumed.
We could maybe try to find a relation between the lume shape and the serial numbers, but not sure.

 

I agree. For me, often extremely hard to tell sometimes if a re-lume or not, and as a rookie, am glad to see the experts also struggle with this at times. I find this the hardest issue sometimes with vintage speedies. Maybe the moral is to not get so hung up with this ???

 

I have bought from George also and he is a stand up guy. I don't think that is what's in doubt here though.

 

I would say that my 145.012 looks very similar to the pic that George has posted but lume is fractionally darker. On mine the lume isnt super straight when viewed under close magnification and has no breaks or steps in the lume where the dial steps. The lume on my '69 however you can see that it steps where the dial does.

 

I agree, I'm not questioning George's integrity. I've bought from him previously, face-to-face. He is 100% legit.

My concern is in regards to this vintage example and the characteristics of the dial lume. I was hoping to uncover references (NOS) with similar lume application for confirmation and education purposes.

I'm very close to leaning that this may be all original, but I can't be 100% without the backup sources. Very curious...

The only simliar example I've come across was in this previous post - also with no clear conclusion. https://omegaforums.net/threads/is-this-speedmaster-relumed-yea-or-nay.27393/

Photo from that thread:

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The lume from this watch looks more likely to have been redone than the OP here does in my opinion. I would lean toward original after reading the other posts and opinions.

 

None of your concerns are real issues, except the first one about your paying a premium for it which is the real cause of your concern.

Does the texture of the lume on dial look like that on the hands? If yes, they're definitely not relumed (at least recently). Your pictures are not clear, but George's picture shows they are similar.