closing tag is in template navbar
timefactors watches



TZ-UK Fundraiser
Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12
Results 51 to 85 of 85

Thread: Can anyone help me identify what my grandfathers watch is?

  1. #51
    Quote Originally Posted by Wibbs View Post
    Nice prize too. They were not a particularly cheap item for the average person.
    If it was a prize, then yes. He kept it all his life and then it was kept safely and handed down. I only wish i know the story of how he got it. I can ask some relatives when i next see them. Perhaps they know.

  2. #52

    Unless you have a Geiger counter, it's hard to be absolutely sure. At that time Radium was the default power source for luminous paint and so it almost certainly is and it's certainly worth treating it with caution. Radium throws out a ionising radiation. Very little will get beyond the skin, but if you inhale the dust then radium has a horrid tendency to migrate to the bones and hang around for a decade being unhelpful. In addition, one of the decay products is radon gas which is well known.

    Now this sounds terrifying, but the fact is that it's just one of many risk factors and can be effectively managed. So don't sniff the dial or fiddle with loose lume and don't leave it all hanging around where people live. Pretty well any lume up until the sixties is worth being cautious about. After that Tritium became the go to substance and that has a half life that means you'll struggle to find any radioactive tritium dials. Radium's half life is in the thousands of years and so it's worth treating with caution.[/QUOTE]

    So i kind of freaked out last night about this. Rapped, bagged and gave it a new home somewhere in the house that it is less likely to be disturbed.

  3. #53
    Quote Originally Posted by M4tt View Post
    There are plenty of options. There are a couple of highly regarded watch repair folk frequent TZ UK, such as walkerwek1958, but be aware that parts can be a problem if it's more than a simple service and I'm not sure that a horologist will be hugely keen on repairing the damaged hinge as that's liable to be a fairly complex silversmithing job and without knowing the grades of silver solder used, can be less than fun. At this point, it's more about getting rid of the radium lume (it's a porcelain dial which will look lovely naked) and this is something to leave to professionals. This is a brilliant heirloom and well worth looking after.
    Thank you. I have reached out to walkerwek1958. I had been using Steve at ritetime, but given he has retired i am not sure he would be up for this type of project. Does anyone else have any recommendations. Many thanks. Tim

  4. #54
    Master
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Location
    Ireland
    Posts
    1,035
    Webwatchmaker another chap on here and he has experience of Trench watches and makes cases too if I'm not mistaken? So might be able to help you with the broken hinge.

  5. #55
    Quote Originally Posted by Wibbs View Post
    Webwatchmaker another chap on here and he has experience of Trench watches and makes cases too if I'm not mistaken? So might be able to help you with the broken hinge.

    Thank you. i have just reached out to Webwatchmaker. T

  6. #56
    Grand Master
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    Sussex
    Posts
    13,888
    Blog Entries
    1
    It’s nice to see the rare and valuable repair skills some on this forum have being properly appreciated...
    Last edited by M4tt; 12th May 2019 at 23:18.

  7. #57
    Quote Originally Posted by M4tt View Post
    It’s nice to see the rare and valuable skills some on this forum have being properly appreciated...
    They have been today and they are by me. Thank you all :)

  8. #58
    Banned
    Join Date
    Sep 2012
    Location
    Torquay, Devon. Great place to work and relax. Love flying and lots of great sea walks.
    Posts
    2,551
    Quote Originally Posted by timc View Post
    Thank you. i have just reached out to Webwatchmaker. T
    Here's one of my boxes of movements like yours:


    Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

  9. #59
    Grand Master
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    Sussex
    Posts
    13,888
    Blog Entries
    1
    Quote Originally Posted by Webwatchmaker View Post
    Here's one of my boxes of movements like yours:


    Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk
    I hope the crumbling lume on those dials are defunct radium 228 and not all too active radium 226, because if not that looks like a particularly high stakes game of Russian Roulette:

    https://www.northampton.ac.uk/news/w...s-cancer-risk/

    You can pick up a bulletproof old soviet detector/dosimeter for not much if you want to check for yourself.

    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Jupiter-S...frcectupt=true

  10. #60
    Craftsman trick cyclist's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Chichester UK
    Posts
    372
    If you want to know more about the stuff, google 'radium girls', there are a few interesting articles and someone has written a book. The photos are quite gruesome.

    Sent from my PRA-LX1 using Tapatalk

  11. #61
    Grand Master
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    Sussex
    Posts
    13,888
    Blog Entries
    1
    Quote Originally Posted by trick cyclist View Post
    If you want to know more about the stuff, google 'radium girls', there are a few interesting articles and someone has written a book. The photos are quite gruesome.

    Sent from my PRA-LX1 using Tapatalk
    True, but to put it into context, they were trained to lick the brush to get all the bristles in line and did this all day everyday. At the sort of dosages being played with here, it’s more indirect risks such as cancer than any direct risk of poisoning. It’s all about mitigation.

  12. #62
    Banned
    Join Date
    Sep 2012
    Location
    Torquay, Devon. Great place to work and relax. Love flying and lots of great sea walks.
    Posts
    2,551
    Quote Originally Posted by M4tt View Post
    I hope the crumbling lume on those dials are defunct radium 228 and not all too active radium 226, because if not that looks like a particularly high stakes game of Russian Roulette:

    https://www.northampton.ac.uk/news/w...s-cancer-risk/

    You can pick up a bulletproof old soviet detector/dosimeter for not much if you want to check for yourself.

    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Jupiter-S...frcectupt=true
    Thank you for this. I have often meant to buy a detector.
    The dials and my luminous mix were measured 20 years ago when a house I was looking at had traces of Radon. The result showed the dials with a negligible risk. The lume showed a higher risk so it was disposed of.
    The quantity of radium was usually very small as radium was expensive. Not so on larger instruments such as aircraft clocks.

    Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

  13. #63
    Master
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Location
    Ireland
    Posts
    1,035
    Quote Originally Posted by M4tt View Post
    True, but to put it into context, they were trained to lick the brush to get all the bristles in line and did this all day everyday.
    Horrible and tragic story. What fascinates me is the number of those women who didn't get sick, at least at the time. They were all getting scarily high exposure.

    Quote Originally Posted by Webwatchmaker View Post
    The quantity of radium was usually very small as radium was expensive. Not so on larger instruments such as aircraft clocks.
    It very much depends on the era WWB. Trench watches in particular can be very "hot" indeed. They painted on thick clumps of the stuff and when you look at prices for aftermarket lume application, which was popular for non lumed watches, it wasn't that expensive at the time. Radium paint was quite the fashion and produced in quite the amounts, with adverts for radium light switches you could find in the dark, radium health drinks, hair dye, even radium painted slippers. Mad. If you read some of the adverts for the radium dialled watches they guarantee the lume for between 2-3 years because the radium would burn out the phosphor material that quickly. Something like a 50's Rolex lume would be expected to last longer than that. Much less radium and applied more thinly.

    A good few years ago I got the loan of a geiger counter and tested a few of my watches. The 40's examples were "warm" to varying degrees, but not so high, a sheet of NOS cathedral hands was pretty hot, tritium dialled stuff was at background. It's an alpha emitter so the crystal and case will stop any nasties and with the half life of 12 odd years most were pretty cold even with the dial out of the case. However the Trench watches set the thing off in a big way. As high and in a couple of cases higher than old aircraft dials I have. Radium is also a gamma emitter and that goes through the case and crystal and human flesh like a hot knife through butter. It can also settle in movements as dust making them hot too. And worse, ingestible. Given what you do and the amount of spares you have it could well be worth buying one of those detectors M4tt suggested.

  14. #64
    Banned
    Join Date
    Sep 2012
    Location
    Torquay, Devon. Great place to work and relax. Love flying and lots of great sea walks.
    Posts
    2,551
    Quote Originally Posted by Wibbs View Post
    Horrible and tragic story. What fascinates me is the number of those women who didn't get sick, at least at the time. They were all getting scarily high exposure.

    It very much depends on the era WWB. Trench watches in particular can be very "hot" indeed. They painted on thick clumps of the stuff and when you look at prices for aftermarket lume application, which was popular for non lumed watches, it wasn't that expensive at the time. Radium paint was quite the fashion and produced in quite the amounts, with adverts for radium light switches you could find in the dark, radium health drinks, hair dye, even radium painted slippers. Mad. If you read some of the adverts for the radium dialled watches they guarantee the lume for between 2-3 years because the radium would burn out the phosphor material that quickly. Something like a 50's Rolex lume would be expected to last longer than that. Much less radium and applied more thinly.

    A good few years ago I got the loan of a geiger counter and tested a few of my watches. The 40's examples were "warm" to varying degrees, but not so high, a sheet of NOS cathedral hands was pretty hot, tritium dialled stuff was at background. It's an alpha emitter so the crystal and case will stop any nasties and with the half life of 12 odd years most were pretty cold even with the dial out of the case. However the Trench watches set the thing off in a big way. As high and in a couple of cases higher than old aircraft dials I have. Radium is also a gamma emitter and that goes through the case and crystal and human flesh like a hot knife through butter. It can also settle in movements as dust making them hot too. And worse, ingestible. Given what you do and the amount of spares you have it could well be worth buying one of those detectors M4tt suggested.
    Thank you for the advice.

    Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk
    Last edited by Webwatchmaker; 14th May 2019 at 11:52.

  15. #65
    I have just posted both these watches off to be repaired and made safe. I am so excited to see how they turn out.

    Tim

  16. #66
    Master alfat33's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2015
    Location
    London
    Posts
    6,198
    Please post some pictures when they come back, I’m looking forward to seeing the results.

  17. #67
    Banned
    Join Date
    Sep 2012
    Location
    Torquay, Devon. Great place to work and relax. Love flying and lots of great sea walks.
    Posts
    2,551
    Here is the trench watch ready for cleaning. I found a cracked lower pallet pivot jewel so rubbed a new jewel in:

    The broken case hinge was repaired:

    And the dial was cleaned of old radium based luminous paint. The dial and hands gave a reading of 55 micro sieverts which is not a high risk but best removed by careful washing:

    And here is the finished result:


    Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

  18. #68
    Craftsman
    Join Date
    Mar 2016
    Location
    Wirral
    Posts
    549
    Thanks for posting this Brendan - always nice to see these restoration jobs!

  19. #69
    Grand Master
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Location
    North
    Posts
    18,926
    Blog Entries
    2
    Quote Originally Posted by Wibbs View Post
    Horrible and tragic story. What fascinates me is the number of those women who didn't get sick, at least at the time. They were all getting scarily high exposure.

    It very much depends on the era WWB. Trench watches in particular can be very "hot" indeed. They painted on thick clumps of the stuff and when you look at prices for aftermarket lume application, which was popular for non lumed watches, it wasn't that expensive at the time. Radium paint was quite the fashion and produced in quite the amounts, with adverts for radium light switches you could find in the dark, radium health drinks, hair dye, even radium painted slippers. Mad. If you read some of the adverts for the radium dialled watches they guarantee the lume for between 2-3 years because the radium would burn out the phosphor material that quickly. Something like a 50's Rolex lume would be expected to last longer than that. Much less radium and applied more thinly.

    A good few years ago I got the loan of a geiger counter and tested a few of my watches. The 40's examples were "warm" to varying degrees, but not so high, a sheet of NOS cathedral hands was pretty hot, tritium dialled stuff was at background. It's an alpha emitter so the crystal and case will stop any nasties and with the half life of 12 odd years most were pretty cold even with the dial out of the case. However the Trench watches set the thing off in a big way. As high and in a couple of cases higher than old aircraft dials I have. Radium is also a gamma emitter and that goes through the case and crystal and human flesh like a hot knife through butter. It can also settle in movements as dust making them hot too. And worse, ingestible. Given what you do and the amount of spares you have it could well be worth buying one of those detectors M4tt suggested.
    I just finished doing an article about the Radium Girls last week.

    https://www.officialwatches.com/blog/the-radium-girls/

    (not promoting the store but the history element is bloody fascinating if anyone wants a potted version)

  20. #70
    Banned
    Join Date
    Sep 2012
    Location
    Torquay, Devon. Great place to work and relax. Love flying and lots of great sea walks.
    Posts
    2,551
    Quote Originally Posted by verv View Post
    I just finished doing an article about the Radium Girls last week.

    https://www.officialwatches.com/blog/the-radium-girls/

    (not promoting the store but the history element is bloody fascinating if anyone wants a potted version)
    Thank you Verv, it was a rather ill informed period in our history. Tragic that these qirls were just finding it possible to enjoy some sense of equality.
    I have always had a fascination for trench watches. If only they could speak. I am sure most would tell a sad tale.
    I remember that I could buy them in the 1970s for £2.00 at Portobello market. They were usually in cardboard boxes underneath the trader's stall, not even worthy of a place on his table. How things change !

    Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

  21. #71
    Let me see if I can add a little colour around this one.

    Recap: few months ago, my mother passed on to me a few items belonging to her father. One of those was a small silver wrist watch and to start the process of learning more I posted a few low quaility photos. The watch is engraved on the back with his name, a date and N.R.A, Bisley Meeting.

    Brendan kindly offered to service and repair the watch and i hope that you will agree with me that he did a wonderful job. In the interim my partner and i had a little baby, so i am so glad that he shared the photos of his work, that are above, with you.

    It was the most interesting learning experience and Brendan was so kind and shared so much about what he was doing - I didn't even think a jewel could crack, let alone know how you burnish a new one in. He transformed the watch from this:



    To this:



    and what's more it now keeps good time :)

    I didn't know anything about the watch. Brendan tells me that 'the trench watch is A.Schild calibre 55. Made from about 1912 onwards. They were amongst the first Swiss made mass production watches and used American techniques. Prior to this date Swiss watches were inferior quality hand finished watches with mostly cylinder, not lever, escapements.' 'There is a London import and 1916 hallmark inside the case back together with a .925 silver mark'. On closer inspection, Brendan didn't believe any other markings have been removed from the case.

    Below is a little of what i have subsequently learnt about the watch and its context. In 1927 Eric was at Brighton College (BC), East Sussex UK. I had an old photo of him in the swimming team in 1925.



    So I reached out to Brighton College's Archivist James Harrison. On the schools website it is noted 'Brighton College is the only school ever to have won all eight trophies for shooting at a single meeting at Bisley. The annus mirabilis for Brighton's VIII occurred in 1927. Shooting was the most important sport at Brighton during the 1920s and 1930s. At least one cup was won every year at Bisley. Brighton headed the annual Bisley averages from 1926 to 1936.'

    He kindly shared scans of pages of the BC magazines that cover the shooting that year and some commentary. 'The May 1927 pages list Eric Willis as a cadet, before providing a schedule of fixtures for the rest of the academic year, including Bisley in July.'



    'The September 1927 BC magazine provides us with a lengthy summary of the success the shooting team had at Bisley. It appears that they won every trophy available at the tournament that year, which may explain why a watch was created to mark that year’s event. There is no mention of watches being given to members of the team in the school archive'.





    Here is a photo of the winning team:



    'The January 1928 BC Magazine provides us with a small insight into one of the events that followed the Bisley success. It mentions that the Bisley team were invited to a dinner, given by the Sussex County Rifle Association, in honour of their successes. Perhaps the watches were given during one of these events? E.G. Willis was the Captain of the shooting team by this point (he was Captain for the 1927-28 academic year).'


    This all started to make sense, i had several gun related silver tea spoons in my kitchen draw, and when i looked they too dated to 1927, with his initials on and one is embossed with the Sussex country Rifle associated. I never understood their significance before this point.



    James' final thoughts on the watches origins were 'After taking a look at the photographs of the watch that you sent me, I note that it has N.R.A. (the National Rifle Association, who organise the Bisley event) engraved on it. Perhaps it was made by the N.R.A. for the Brighton College team, to mark their impressive performance during the 1927 tournament? This would explain why the watches are not mentioned in the school magazine, as it was not arranged by the College.'

    So although we could not find definitive proof it was given to him to mark the 1927 tournament, it seems it was probability intended to mark that event. He may well have arranged for the engraving himself, i can not be sure. As watch lovers some of us have been known to buy or give watches to mark milestones in our and our loved ones lives, so just may be.....

    Last edited by timc; 22nd July 2019 at 10:39.

  22. #72
    Master
    Join Date
    Aug 2012
    Location
    Gods own county of Sussex
    Posts
    1,051
    What a great story. I very much enjoyed that read. It’s a fabulous little watch.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  23. #73
    Grand Master Sinnlover's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2014
    Location
    London
    Posts
    10,942
    That’s a great story. Nice to be able to find out about your family and the watch. It will be a nice thing to pass on to your little one.
    Coincidentally I will be at Bisley on Friday with my Enfield.
    Last edited by Sinnlover; 23rd July 2019 at 09:50.

  24. #74
    Banned
    Join Date
    Sep 2012
    Location
    Torquay, Devon. Great place to work and relax. Love flying and lots of great sea walks.
    Posts
    2,551
    I think it is truly amazing how much you have been able to discover. Obviously a great deal of research was done.
    It really makes me feel good to know that I could restore this little time machine.
    These watches all have unique stories.

    Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

  25. #75
    Master
    Join Date
    Oct 2012
    Location
    Hertfordshire
    Posts
    2,828
    Blog Entries
    1
    What a fascinating history- congratulations on your research and many thanks for sharing.

    ATB

    Jon

    Sent from my moto e5 play using Tapatalk

  26. #76
    Master alfat33's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2015
    Location
    London
    Posts
    6,198
    Great research and a lovely story, thanks for setting it out for us to enjoy.

  27. #77
    Grand Master JasonM's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Cambridgeshire
    Posts
    16,144
    Great detective work, if you felt inclined, you could try to trace the family of others in that team and see if there were other watches that have made it through the years.
    Cheers..
    Jase

  28. #78
    Quote Originally Posted by JasonM View Post
    Great detective work, if you felt inclined, you could try to trace the family of others in that team and see if there were other watches that have made it through the years.
    James Harrison, the archivist at Brighton College had the same idea. He thought it might make a good summer project for him...


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  29. #79
    Master
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Location
    Ireland
    Posts
    1,035
    Great result! TimC. Nice job from Brendan. Lovely job with the case and the dial too(just noticed it's a double sunk dial. That's better than average quality. Niiiice). It's fantastic you have found out all this very cool period in your family's history Tim. And now you have a real "time capsule" on your wrist, that can actually tell the time too. :) Not too surprised it's a good timekeeper, especially after a specialist like Brendan had his wicked way with it. :) I've had a few of that era down the years and they varied in condition and accuracy, but a couple of them were cracking little timekeepers. I love these stories.



    PS good article Verv. Good to see you got yourself a detector Brendan. Have to keep you safe. TimC's watch at .5 of a microsievert was fairly low alright. Better rid mind you. It's mad how they can vary, or that's what I found at least. The mixes seem to have varied quite a bit. Some thinly applied or with little of the stuff left lit up like Christmas trees(well over 8 microsieverts) , others with almost complete lume were quite low like TimC's.

  30. #80
    Craftsman Ascalon's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2017
    Location
    Dublin
    Posts
    266
    That is a great result, and thanks for sharing.

    Well done and enjoy it.

  31. #81
    Verv - Your article is really good - It is such a sad story. Thank you

    Quote Originally Posted by verv View Post
    I just finished doing an article about the Radium Girls last week.

    https://www.officialwatches.com/blog/the-radium-girls/

    (not promoting the store but the history element is bloody fascinating if anyone wants a potted version)

  32. #82
    Bendan - it is still keeping great time :) Thank you

  33. #83
    Grand Master number2's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    North and South.
    Posts
    30,562
    Quote Originally Posted by verv View Post
    I just finished doing an article about the Radium Girls last week.

    https://www.officialwatches.com/blog/the-radium-girls/
    Interesting read V, .
    "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."

    'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.

  34. #84
    Banned
    Join Date
    Sep 2012
    Location
    Torquay, Devon. Great place to work and relax. Love flying and lots of great sea walks.
    Posts
    2,551
    Quote Originally Posted by timc View Post
    Bendan - it is still keeping great time :) Thank you
    Great news Tim. I'll be back to work in the morning.

    Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

  35. #85
    Banned
    Join Date
    Sep 2012
    Location
    Torquay, Devon. Great place to work and relax. Love flying and lots of great sea walks.
    Posts
    2,551
    *Great article Verv. Interestingly IWC just told one of my customers that they had to replace the hands on a Portofino (I think) because they were radioactive. Total BS. They didn't know I have a radiation meter and the original hands are reading zero microsieverts !

    Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  

Do Not Sell My Personal Information