We do not guarantee the waterproof nature of any (vintage) watch, unless expressly made in writing. We offer a one-year warranty on the mechanical function of the watch, starting from the day of purchase.
RADIUM DIAL WATCH FULL
Simply return the watch to get a full refund of the original purchase price. If you are not 100% satisfied, please let us know. Once you have received your watch, we encourage you to inspect it thoroughly. Key to our unparalleled service is Fedex Priority shipping, fully insured. We will never hide or cover up any element of any watch we sell. Our zoomable images are of the highest possible quality and form an important part of each watch’s description. We will always describe the watch as fully as we can in our sales texts. If necessary, the movement will be fully serviced and tested to ensure it is running to our exacting standards. After we buy a watch it is mechanically inspected and fully checked by our watchmaker. Includes a handmade leather watch pouchĮach vintage timepiece is individually selected and carefully inspected by our team of experts. Comes on the pictured Bulang and Sons strap Lemania Majetek reference 261dating to the late 1930s The watch will come on the pictured Bulang and Sons strap and has been fully checked and regulated by our watchmaker. We believe that te hands may have been relumed at some point.
The watch houses a black dial with radium Arabic hours with some patina on the dial. This example is by Lemania and remains in excellent condition with a strong 38mm case with military engraving on the case back: “Majetek Vojenské Správy” which translates to “property of the military administration” and an issue number “49xx”.
RADIUM DIAL WATCH MOD
Known as Majeteks, the watches were ordered by the Czechoslovakian military and were made by a number of companies in a similar way to the UK MoD ‘Dirty Dozen’ watches.
RADIUM DIAL WATCH MANUAL
However, McGivney recommended that collectors store these watches in lead-lined pouches.This is a lovely condition Lemania manual wind watch made for the Czech Air Force. While all emitted some radioactivity, McGivney concluded that the exposure was not enough to harm the people who wear them. McGivney shared videos of readings she took with a Geiger counter from watches with radium dials. Are these watches dangerous to handle or wear? The short answer is no. Which brings us to the present day: since the watch industry used radium until well into the 1950s, many watches with radium dials survive. The “Radium Girls” churned out dials, knowing that the watches they painted would adorn the wrists of soldiers fighting “over there” in the First World War.īy the 1920s, the Radium Girls began to fall ill and die of wasting diseases that doctors attributed to their ingestion of the element, eventually filing lawsuits which led to the establishment of OSHA. They would dip their camelhair brushes into a solution of radium, and then moisten the tip of the brushes between their lips to give them a finer point. Starting in the 1910s, thousands of young women began working at factories devoted to producing watches with radium dials. Also, since radium was viewed at the time to have medicinal benefits (even touted to cure arthritis and high blood pressure), its potential deleterious effects were ignored… to deadly effect. Radium, discovered by the Curies (who coined the term “radioactivity”) in the 1890s, was ideal for that use due to its radioluminescent properties. Radioluminescence, the process by which light is produced by bombarding a reactive material with ionizing radiation, was widely used as the demand for watches that were readable at night grew.
But do these watches present any dangers to the collectors who wear them? In her lecture to the Horological Society of New York on November 7, 2017, HSNY's Director of Operations and Red Bar's COO Kathleen McGivney delved into the history of radium dials and answered those pressing questions.
Many watch collectors own watches with radium dials - even seeking them out specifically.
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