#4546749 - 12/01/20 08:03 PM
Re: Anyone here collect or own vintage watches or clocks ?
[Re: Mark Aisthorpe]
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Joined: Apr 2001
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PanzerMeyer
Pro-Consul of Florida
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Pro-Consul of Florida
King Crimson - SimHQ's Top Poster
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Miami, FL USA
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Fascinating stuff indeed and I knew a bit about the use of radium in early 20th century watches and clocks.
Radium is quite scary stuff indeed,
"Radium is highly radioactive, and its immediate daughter, radon gas, is also radioactive. When ingested, 80% of the ingested radium leaves the body through the feces, while the other 20% goes into the bloodstream, mostly accumulating in the bones.[11] Exposure to radium, internal or external, can cause cancer and other disorders, because radium and radon emit alpha and gamma rays upon their decay, which kill and mutate cells."
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
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#4546756 - 12/01/20 09:13 PM
Re: Anyone here collect or own vintage watches or clocks ?
[Re: Mark Aisthorpe]
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 11,072
semmern
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Oslo, Norway
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I have a couple of vintage watches, but none so old as to have radium lume. My oldest one is a gold Patek Philippe after my grandfather, from the late 40s or early 50s, but without lume on the markers. Then there is an old IWC and a couple of Omegas, and I have an interesting one that is about to be restored; A Bulova Accutron 214, with a tuning-fork movement. Then there are my more modern Omegas, a Speedmaster (even if that’s an old design), Seamaster and my most recently acquired one, a Railmaster. https://www.watchuseek.com/attachments/1833ae9e-534b-4018-8473-24161d5d0a0d-jpeg.15568179/
In all my years I've never seen the like. It has to be more than a hundred sea miles and he brings us up on his tail. That's seamanship, Mr. Pullings. My God, that's seamanship!
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#4546760 - 12/01/20 09:47 PM
Re: Anyone here collect or own vintage watches or clocks ?
[Re: Mark Aisthorpe]
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 11,072
semmern
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Oslo, Norway
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Quite a lot of WWII-era cockpit instruments also used radium on hands and dials for luminescense. I have seen and heard a Geiger counter go mad near one. It is important to be careful when opening such instruments, as the dust that collects inside can pick up radium particles that you then breathe in.
In all my years I've never seen the like. It has to be more than a hundred sea miles and he brings us up on his tail. That's seamanship, Mr. Pullings. My God, that's seamanship!
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#4546763 - 12/01/20 10:15 PM
Re: Anyone here collect or own vintage watches or clocks ?
[Re: Mark Aisthorpe]
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Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 3,296
Mark Aisthorpe
Crazy Courier
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Crazy Courier
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London UK
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I only have one vintage watch, a gold Tudor Royal that was given to my Grandad for 20 years service at Firestone tyres in 1967. It doesn't have any luminescence though fortunately, just an off white face with gold hands and numbers.
The bit that shocked me the most was the Soviet bunkers and flats. If we had tried to invade during the cold war we wouldn't have needed to use tactical nukes at the borders seeing as the soviet troops were already cooking in their bunkers.
Asus Maximus XI Hero i9-9900K 32Gb Corsair Vengeance Pro DDR4 3200MHz MSI RTX 2080Ti Ventus Corsair H115i Corsair RM850X PSU Phanteks Evolv X Asus VG32G Monitor 2560x1440 Win 10
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#4546789 - 12/02/20 02:49 AM
Re: Anyone here collect or own vintage watches or clocks ?
[Re: Mark Aisthorpe]
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Joined: Jan 2001
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ArgonV
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College Station, Texas, USA
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I have some old Vostok watches from the Soviet Union. Do you think they are radium?
"Go Fly A Kite!" -Jason R. FS-WWI Project Leader FS-WWI Plane Pack SiteIntel i9 10900k Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Elite AC 64GB Corsair DDR4 2933 Vengeance RGB Pro AMD XFX 7900 XTX Merc310 Black Edition LG UltraGear 38GN95B-B 38" monitor Corsair HX1200 PSU 1TB EVO 980 Pro M.2 PCIe x4 SSD 2TB EVO 980 Pro M.2 PCIe x4 SSD Two 2TB EVO 860 SSDs Sound Blaster ZxR Win 10 x64 Pro HOTAS Cougar #4069 w/Uber II Nxt mod #284 & UTM bushings
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#4546796 - 12/02/20 07:05 AM
Re: Anyone here collect or own vintage watches or clocks ?
[Re: ArgonV]
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semmern
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I have some old Vostok watches from the Soviet Union. Do you think they are radium? Not if they’re the Komandirskie style. Like this one?
In all my years I've never seen the like. It has to be more than a hundred sea miles and he brings us up on his tail. That's seamanship, Mr. Pullings. My God, that's seamanship!
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#4546800 - 12/02/20 10:48 AM
Re: Anyone here collect or own vintage watches or clocks ?
[Re: Mark Aisthorpe]
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Joined: Apr 2006
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BD-123
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Old Scroat
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Naunton Beauchamp Worcestershi...
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A Great aunt of mine suffered from 'Mouth Rot' losing part of her tongue and mandible, during the first World War. She painted luminous dials for aircraft, clocks, watches and other instruments in a small London factory. The condition was caused by the common practice to get a fine tip on the brush for this delicate intricate work was constant drawing across the tongue during the painting process. I gather from other sources that this action was forbidden by the employers, but not enforced as the girls and supervisors were on piece-work pay rates and this dangerous practice sped up output and accuracy. The irony is that my Grandmother said her sister worked there as the alternative employment in the Woolwich Arsenal munition works was deemed to dangerous!
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#4546808 - 12/02/20 11:51 AM
Re: Anyone here collect or own vintage watches or clocks ?
[Re: BD-123]
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Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 121,383
PanzerMeyer
Pro-Consul of Florida
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Pro-Consul of Florida
King Crimson - SimHQ's Top Poster
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Posts: 121,383
Miami, FL USA
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A Great aunt of mine suffered from 'Mouth Rot' losing part of her tongue and mandible, during the first World War. She painted luminous dials for aircraft, clocks, watches and other instruments in a small London factory. The condition was caused by the common practice to get a fine tip on the brush for this delicate intricate work was constant drawing across the tongue during the painting process. I gather from other sources that this action was forbidden by the employers, but not enforced as the girls and supervisors were on piece-work pay rates and this dangerous practice sped up output and accuracy. The irony is that my Grandmother said her sister worked there as the alternative employment in the Woolwich Arsenal munition works was deemed to dangerous! There are some very well documented cases, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
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#4547009 - 12/03/20 11:26 PM
Re: Anyone here collect or own vintage watches or clocks ?
[Re: semmern]
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Joined: Jan 2001
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ArgonV
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College Station, Texas, USA
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Not if they’re the Komandirskie style. Like this one?
Thanks! I have several of the CCCP marked era ones of the Komandirskie and Amphibian 200m (self-winding and non).
"Go Fly A Kite!" -Jason R. FS-WWI Project Leader FS-WWI Plane Pack SiteIntel i9 10900k Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Elite AC 64GB Corsair DDR4 2933 Vengeance RGB Pro AMD XFX 7900 XTX Merc310 Black Edition LG UltraGear 38GN95B-B 38" monitor Corsair HX1200 PSU 1TB EVO 980 Pro M.2 PCIe x4 SSD 2TB EVO 980 Pro M.2 PCIe x4 SSD Two 2TB EVO 860 SSDs Sound Blaster ZxR Win 10 x64 Pro HOTAS Cougar #4069 w/Uber II Nxt mod #284 & UTM bushings
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