...and whiskers on kittens Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens Brown paper packages tied up with strings These are a few of my favorite things So, we see these wet spots on dials, and we think "relume". Having seen a couple of these in hand, I thought it looked more like someone was trying to stabilize the lume rather than replace it. I was wondering what the collective thinks. Related; is stabilizing better | worse | same as compared to a relume? Opinions very much appreciated.
Looks like a new hire that was putting his first lume on the dial 50 years ago. I've never seen anything like that, at least not that pronounced.
Some people have zero business working on a watch and it is sad such a nice dial can be slightly ruined by a careless hack job
I remember a 2998/105.002 (was not clear) up for sale/trade few weeks ago with a (supposedly radium) dial showing the famous dark signs around the plots. Effectively I see more probable stabilization than relume. In all these cases indeed the lume marks loom authentic. On the other side we saw many relumed examples without wet spots. https://omegaforums.net/threads/wtf-is-this-old-speedy.55888/
Rightly or wrongly I associate those shadows around the lume plots as evidence of a relume. I guess this might not always be the case. Stabilisation may be an explanation. If nothing else we can probably say it points to a high likelihood of some work to the lume/dial. Then again, could it just be the original lume affecting the paint around the markers. It's generally accepted that the paint used in the blue dials from the 60's/70's often react with tritium, leading to the paint perishing, revealing the brass plate underneath. Could this just be a minor reaction of some black paint to tritium? Personally I don't think so, as dials I've seen with the shadows around the markers often had other tells towards a relume, but it's worth considering.
I'm thinking of having my 145.012 stabilized. Is it me, or is the lume of this ref. Just very prone to flaking?
I suspect both relume and stabilization could do this. That first dial looks clearly relumed to me. But I think the lume on the second is original, so that one possibly stabilized, or just natural tritium related effects. Agree with others, these are blemishes I would prefer not to have.
If the plots were stabilized with clear binder, I would not expect any of that to end up on the dial...
@Archer, is that because of workmanship (i.e. a good artisan would not let it spill over)? or because you wouldn't see clear binder?
You would have to be pretty sloppy to let it spill over if that's what those marks are. The binder is nor like water - it's quite viscous...
Thanks Al. So is the consensus that stabilizing is equal to reluming in terms of effect in value? (These particular dials not being the question)
Hmmm??? I'm a novice @oddboy but I know from everything I've learned from you blokes so far that collectors don't like anything that's added or non original. I would have thought that if, as @Archer said, a clear binder was expertly applied it's got to be better than the risk of doing nothing. I think it looks great when lume shows genuine signs of aging, and it'seems like a good idea if this can be preserved without the risk of bits of it 'rattling around' inside a 50 year old 321 movement. It would seem logical to me that preserving the original lume, as opposed to a relume ought to be a plus factor with regard to value.
To me one is changing the dial, while the other is simply preserving it. For me personally, I would much rather have a nice dial that was stabilized, than one that was relumed.