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It is true that our 'radium girls' developed cancer as a result of unknowingly ingesting quantities of radium. But 'other girls' have died from tobacco. If you have a fine watch with a well preserved radium dial, such as my Longines cal 18.88Z, relax a little and realse that you are in no danger unless you eat the dial. Radium itself in the quantities used on dials does not glow. It was the incorporated fluorescent zinc sulphide that glowed. But over the years this has been degraded by the radiation. Perhaps into zinc oxide. I asked Dr. Roland Ranfft to do a little experiment by painting zinc sulphide onto the non-glowing ancient dial numbers and hands. The newly applied zinc suphide glowed giving the dial its original look. He now supplies activated zinc sulphide for anyone who is a good painter or who can outsource the work. Alternatively, the modern phosphors such as Luminova will also glow permanently, and more brightly than zinc sulphide, when applied to old radium dials. But the 'look' will be less authentic.

Updating on the situation: Despite all of the information I basically suffered a month long anxiety attack. Since then I have sold both of my suspect radium watches to collectors on Ebay, vacuumed my room multiple times, cleaned my tweezers, and dusted my desk and watchmaking mat. Still I find me self rather uneasy to even sleep in my room, and to tell you the truth I don't even know if I was working with radium this entire time. The 6 watches I suspect are radium might have been tritium, although I highly doubt that at least not one of them was radium. The radon gas aspect just has me a little queasy still. Could any lume have fallen off without my knowing? Maybe under my desk, or in a drawer? Emitting radon gas as I speak? Is it even enough to be dangerous? Or am I freaking out for absolutely no reason? It just seems as though one side of the equation tells me to be afraid and the other says I have nothing to worry about. I am not trying to vent my anxieties to a watchmaking forum, I am just telling you guys my experience and for any hobbyist that has my similar worries to not feel alone. Not sure if any of you guys can elaborate on this or not. I just figured I should let you all, or any future viewer know how it was going. P.S. I am genuinely sorry if I sound manic or insane haha

Very interesting reading, especially about the radon danger. This is important reading for those who have collections of radium dialled watches. Is there a way it can be posted at a higher level to make those people aware?

That was an interesting study. I never thought I'd see the word "gonadol" in print, but there it is: "Robinson (1968) estimated the average gonadol dose-equivalent rate was 3 339 mrem/y (0.03 mSv/y) for each of the 10 million people in the USA who wore such watches . . . ." I guess the upshot of the study is to take precautions not only with the radium but also with the radon gas.

I spit in the eye of danger @LittleWatchShop I was going to post pics of radium toothpaste, water, and suppositories (), but it's a bit off topic. But I do need to get some of this hand cleaner, it sounds great : "Takes off everything but the skin" . . . but given time.

Radium is extremely dangerous and all watches tools and parts even your house that have come in contact with it should be sent to me immediately.

I think we are arguing the same point from different directions, I suppose what I was trying to do (badly) was introduce the concept of ALARP (as low as reasonably practicable) which involves lowering a risk as much as possible without increasing unreasonably the trouble, time and money needed to control it. In your example I agree with you that a parachute and a reserve would be ALARP, but adding 3rd or 4th parachute 'just in case' would not be ALARP. The reason I hesitated using the acronym is that it ALARP is frequently perverted into a justification for cheeping out on safety, or as it is commonly known: as low as reasonably PRICED. But in its true form I believe even modest precautions with radium would be ALARP.

Absolutely. What I will say is that while technically the amounts involved are very small, and the risks are low, if everyone follows this advice, then there will be elevated levels of radium at every landfill and incineration site, since any "securely sealed" container will stay "securely sealed" for about 5 seconds once it enters the back of a trash compactor (aka bin lorry). Having said that, this is small beer compared with for example the beaches on the Fife coast near a former WWII era scrap merchant which disposed of large amounts of luminous instrument dials by burning in barrels and discharging the resultant mildly radioactive slurry down the Fife coast. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-63515856 Not to mention the disposal by Timex Dundee of barrels of lumed dials from fishing trawlers into the North sea. Out of site and out of mind seems to be the British disposal policy. That didn't end well at Dounray. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-54085592 Low risk, throw it in the trash, don't tell anyone, and let the council burn it. What could possibly go wrong that is worse than what has already gone wrong?

Hello there, Since some time now i wonder if there are any health and safety risks in this hobby. For almost two years now I repair watches as a hobby now and occasionally i noticed a hint or two regarding some risky materials. As Beryllium for example is in many alloys in use for watch movements for example and Beryllium alloys are often described as "very poisonous". Also i wonder if any of the oils or cleaning products are hazardous... As i never enjoyed a proper tradeshool or anything like that and i could not find proper information about health and safety risks regarding hobby watch rapairing, I am very curious about your input. Regards and greetings from Styria, Austria.

Neat old watch that's showing its age in a rather charming way. Still, I'm sure it would be nice to clean up a bit and have it running well. The bridge layout is so common that it may be difficult to nail down a maker. The best hope may be to have the dial removed to see the keyless works. Then again, it's probably quite early to be certain of its inclusion into the various "fingerprint" diagrams. Still, there might be a marking on the pillar plate under the dial that could help with ID. Be aware that the hands and numerals are almost certainly radium and have surprisingly strong radioactivity. You don't want to handle them roughly at all. Your watchmaker, should you enlist the services of one, should know all about radium. Good luck getting better info. Cheers.

The radium craze permeated almost every aspect of American society, it featured in everything from religious sermons to cartoons and films. It became a plot device in novels and influenced the naming of consumer products ranging from fertilizers to cigarettes to cosmetics. There was even a nightclub in Brooklyn called ‘The Radium Club’ and casinos began playing radium roulette played in the dark with a ball and roulette wheel painted with glowing radium. The extreme rarity of radium made it a prestige item, in 1903 the New York Times reported that a single gram cost $2,000. This rarity coupled with the element’s ability to glow in the dark captured the public’s imagination. Business soon began to capitalise on this popularity using radium as a selling point for everything from make-up to butter. While many of these products didn’t actually include any radium, others did. Radium’s medical applications were touted by many doctors and scientists and the radioactive metal became associated with rejuvenation and invigoration. A slew of products began to be sold by quack doctors including ‘radium emanators’ and tablets like Radione which were advertised to enthuse ordinary water with radium’s ‘life-giving’ properties. However, it was a seemingly insignificant product, a watch with a luminous face, which would expose the horrifying dangers of radium misuse.

do a search it's been discussed before while I have a Geiger counter I don't recall that's on the normal watchmakers tool list? are you suggesting we destroy a sizable part of the vintage watches because the reality is radium is everywhere and watch repair anything vintage is probably going to have radium of some quantity. No I'm not trying to belittle your discovery I'm just pointing out we've discussed it before. It really becomes a problem in a few have a Geiger counter and then you're aware of oh dear should I be concerned? For instance I once did a Mickey Mouse watch for somebody and the person who brought it to me was an assistant of a radiologist. So I pointed out oh by the way those hands are radium. She returned to watch the Doctor who took out his Geiger counter and the watch was never seen again. Oh definitely excited about watches whited to take up military timepiece collecting. The military more was definitely better. As Seattle is relatively close to the Canadian border the local watch and clock collectors oftentimes go to meetings in Canada. On two separate occasions I've heard from people when coming back got pulled over at the border. That's because they had the ships clock with radium hands. I don't know if the clock was confiscated or not I think there were more concerned about something else which the clock was not. Do a search we discussed it before on the message board.

Roland Ranfft is offering two re-luming pastes with excellent instructions on their use (as in Mark's video). One is based on the phosphor Zinc Sulphide (ZnS) , the other on Luminova. http://www.ranfft.de/cgi-bin/bidfun.cgi?10&ranfft&b7&1usem&1456959600 http://www.ranfft.de/cgi-bin/bidfun.cgi?10&ranfft&b7&1usem&1456959601 These will glow for a few hours after exposure to sunlight (phosphorescence). The early Radium luminous dials and hands glowed continuously due to the very long lifetime Alpha and Beta emission. Today an early Radium dial has no more radio-luminescence due to radiation damage to the phosphor (usually silver activated ZnS). But a dial with a good coating of old luminous paint (see below) can be brought to life again by applying a new overlay of ZnS. I asked Ranfft to test this out and he found that non-activated ZnS applied over an old radio-luminous dial did glow even after several hours in the dark when the light-activated phosphorescence would have vanished. He also reported that Luminova was also activated in the same way but with more brightness than the ZnS. Our conclusion is that if you have a radio-luminescent dial in good condition such as this one Then it could be brought to life again to glow all night long by the application of a layer of Luminova paste over the old numbers and hands. Silver activated ZnS paste would also perform well and be nearer to the original. Activated ZnS is available in small quantities from: https://unitednuclear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=16_17_69&products_id=218 If you do want to get into this game then buy a cheap (post Fukushima) radiation monitor from one of the Japanese eBay sources. The above dial has a radiation dose rate above the crystal of 40 micro Sv/h. This is ample for a re-luming job.

Hi welcome to the forum, pity the watch is kaput, in what way is it broken. There does not look like there is any worry over radium on that watch. The one that have luminous compounds from the 30s 40s 50s probably do contain radium in the paint. Normal precautions taken as a matter of course, ie if the compound is flaking off and bits can be seen on the dial wear a mask and gloves to avoid inhaling or touching the material and if you are removing it for re luming do it in a bag and discard the contents safely. Modern watches do not use radium. Have you a picture of the movement as it looks a classic face and 9ct gold case

We have a bit of a problem with radium lume here in Scotland in the Firth of Forth. Apparently the MOD decided to dump aircraft instruments in the river after WW2 and the stuff gets washed up on the beach and gets collected when detected. It’s costing millions to do this year after year. the most recent write up I can find is here https://inews.co.uk/news/environment/dalgety-bay-radioactive-scottish-beach-almost-safe-33-years-2299839 They are collecting fragments around 1mm square which are considered dangerous apparently. Tom

The case at least is from 1916 so before Wakmman existence. The style of hands and radium dial are quite common. If there's no makers mark under the balance or dial then using the best fit catalogue is the next step.

Newbie guess - could it be a Wakmman - correct time frame, I have a small Swiss Walkman pocket watch with similar hands and radium issues. Incase you don't already have this info; In 1895, Mr. Wakmann was born in Russia with Jewish origins. 1943 – During WWII In the early stages of World War II (WWII), Mr. Wakmann started his watch business in Portugaland and had been representing several high-end European watch brands. At the same time, warfare was spreading across Europe at a rapid pace. During the Holocaust, the Wakmann family devoted great efforts in assisting refugees from the Nazi horror. During WWII in North America, many American watch companies were put at a disadvantage. Their production was switched to war products, while the Swiss watch manufacturers produced watches for war efforts and civilians. As a result, the U.S.government decided to support the American watch industry. The Swiss Watch Import Act was subsequently formed, and the U.S. Department of Commerce started to impose custom duties on high-end imported Swiss watches. Mr. Wakmann quickly recognized that this was an excellent opportunity to start his professional watch business in America. Therefore, he travelled across the Atlantic Ocean, from Lisbon,Portugal toNew York City, with the aim of establishing his new business in North America– to fulfill his lifelong dream. If not looking forward to seeing what it was all the best...Jules Not Walkman - Wakmman! Spell checker again...

Hi Mike, I was just about to attempt a cheeky peek under the balance when I thought "let's check the dial for radium" and all works stopped for now. The movement is 27.8mm(ish) trying to measure it still cased.

you don't have to have ancient watches to have radium. I was looking at a hand assortments these are brand-new hands on pieces of paper so each of the hands are Nice and separate notice that some of the hands which I assume have radium have actually darkened the paper behind them. But the brand-new hands that obviously have been around for a while. the best approach would be to not clean up your radium. Think of radium as a sleeping Tiger it would be best to keep it sleeping. If you start to clean it usually require chemicals solutions rubber gloves you going to end up with a lot of radium spread all over the place and it's still radium. It'd be just best if you left it alone. I guess a better question would be not so much for watchmakers handling units because there is a conceivability when putting the hand on having her face so close maybe you breathe in a particle. But what about the consumer? Are there any documented cases of someone wearing a wristwatch and getting cancer? Think of all the years we had watches with radium hands that are still out there with radium how many cases of cancer? Or I was trying to think what would give us the best exposure to radium to try the experiment not really? Dollar watches especially those with glow-in-the-dark hands that would probably be the most radioactive thing you would have because the hands of the physically be bigger lots a radium and you're probably carrying it in your pockets. So how many cases of cancer from that is there anything documented at all? maybe ignorance is good if you don't know their radioactive then you don't have anything to worry about. But if you'd like to worry I have some a link.. if you look at the link the watch on the left isn't that a pocket watch with a really big hands? But maybe we got an answer from the link? Notice they're not concerned about you carrying the pocketwatch in your pockets that are not concerned about wearing it on the wrist there only concerned about the other effect of having radium or specifically exposure to radon https://www.kingston.ac.uk/news/article/2068/15-jun-2018--second-world-warera-wristwatches-could-pose-cancer-risk-due-to-radon-exposure-according-to/ this link is interesting in that a point out the evils of radioactive materials especially those people who look their paintbrushes but you get to the bottom of the page and? As long as you leave your radium stuff alone and don't poke at it or don't try to clean it up yourself your fine. So they don't seem to be upset about wearing a radium watch in an article where they're concerned about radioactive stuff. I guess if you're really worried about your radioactive hands put them somewhere safe otherwise don't worry about it but definitely do not try to clean it up yourself maybe can find a modern replacement https://www.epa.gov/radtown/radioactivity-antiques

A lot of the danger is blown out of proportion as people panic when they hear "radiation". Not realising that even bananas (and us) are radioactive to some degree. The bottom line is, you are probably safe unless you ingest some radium - which you definitely don't want. The body treats it as calcium and deposits it in bone, where it will stay for the rest of you life, emitting alpha, beta, gamma particles. Alpha particles are the most damaging inside the body (Litvinenko was killed by an alpha emitter). That's why, when working on radium dials and hands, I wear a mask and gloves, use cling film on the work surface, and use water to remove any radium.

Thinking of YouTube videos did you watch the video is at the link I gave up above? I was curious and watched his last video on detectors and revealed what I suspected a lot of the inexpensive ones you find on Amazon or eBay are not quite worthless but almost worthless. You need a detector with a better sense or otherwise you're not going to pick up all the stuff you really want to pick up Oh and here's an interesting company. The Accucell watch hands the listed under Geiger counter accessories. We'll see they have Geiger counter kits unknown if they're very good. I'm suspicious of anything that has a metal tube because the metal tube is going to filter out things. For instance my two bits on my machine has I think it's Micah in the front it's a very thin something that's not metal that makes it very sensitive. So they have anything resembling metal it's for it has to be much stronger. Even in the review video at the YouTube link above he has a detector that was two-part Sydney pointed out it had a more higher radiation detector and he takes the back off and sure enough the metal tube. So basically by the time that part of the detector would be unhappy well you'd be unhappy in your future also but the website they do have things to pick up just in case you don't have any radium hands as they have a few of those for sale and other things of the radioactive https://theelectronicgoldmine.com/ That reminds me of an interesting story. The national Association of watch and clock collectors as regional meetings all across the country. Somewhere in I don't know if as a regional meeting or a national meeting somebody came in to the meeting and claim they were from the Atomic Energy Commission and they had a Geiger counter and they were going to confiscate everything that was radioactive at least that was the story I was told in and basically everything that had radium was under the table after that. I think somebody thought it was basically just a clever scam to pick up harmful evil radioactive items like Rolex watches they have a lot of well some of them do of course the amusement with the story is if you have one of the sensitive detectors hiding your radium stuff under the table isn't going to do the a lot a good. What's really fun for risk is if I can remember what I did with my bag of military timepiece hands I don't remember how many I have in a bag but Quite a few and that's where my detector will pick that up several feet away ill start picking up whatever it's radiating which is why usually I try to remember to put that someplace else in the house the same as the aircraft clock dials there somewhere else in the house and I thought normally all the radioactive hands were someplace else like in the attic Far away.

The practice of UK Time, aka Timex Dundee, luming dials with radium continued on in to the 1950s and 1960s. Furthermore the company was not averse to dumping unwanted radioactive dials by the thousand, straight in to the North sea. This is from a Sunday Post article on the subject. So it would appear that radium waste was 'disposed of' both in the North sea and the Atlantic for many years. As to the danger of an individual dial, I would suggest that this is relatively low. I would however be a lot more concerned if one of those drums were to wash up on the shore. The only way to know for sure if your dial has radium would be to check it with a geiger counter, since the zinc based material in the lume degrades over time and it looses its luminous properties. This means that while the lume is still radioactive, (the most stable isotope being radium-226, which has a half-life of 1600 years and decays into radon gas, also radioactive), it is no longer luminous, so you can't simply assume that if it doesn't glow, then it isn't radioactive. The watch you show above, is probably from the late 1950s, or at least before 1963, because it doesn't have a date code on the dial. The case back style suggests 1950s rather than 1960s. If I were to take a guess I would say 1959. Some earlier Timexes have an ink-stamped date code on the inside caseback consisting of one letter and one number. The numeral denotes the year of manufacture as follows: 1959-8, 1960-7, 1961-6, 1962-5 1963-4 1964-3 1965-2 1966-1 1967-9. So if you look inside the case on the case back, there may be an inked stamp mark with some letters on it that gives a more exact date. These however have often been cleaned from or rubbed off the case back. It may have radium, or it may simply have coloured hands, or it may once have had radium and this has been replaced at some stage in the past. Whatever the story is, I would have little major concern about the lume, so long as you are careful when servicing the watch. Read through the rest of this thread for more info on this subject. The levels of radiation present are likely to be perhaps a few times background. Don't ingest the lume, don't sniff the dial, wash your hands after handling it and you should be fine.

I have said this somewhere else on this forum: working on radium is simply not a concern IMHO. I posted several government papers on the topic that support my view and I gave the anecdotal evidence that my father worked on radium watches from 1947 to about 1990 without taking any precautions that I am aware of. He died at 93 of issues unrelated to radium All that being said, don't eat it or ingest it through other body orifices. I have one of the inexpensive geiger counters...just for fun.

Have a look at this military pocket watch from WWII. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Elgin-Military-GSTP-WWII-Pocket-Watch-1943-9-Jewels-size-16s/164090389422?hash=item26348ca3ae:g:0CEAAOSw0AxeTsCc Have a look at the photo of the dial it looks like the radium on the hands has blackened the crystal. I have seen this before on clocks with a lot of radium on the hands giving a purple tint to the glass dial, but never seen this on a watch before and never that dark. Has anyone else ever seen this on a watch before?

Here's an extract from Radium USA . Radium water was drunk by the rich and famous, not by the working-class girls from Newark. It was a bit of a craze in American life. The element was dubbed “liquid sunshine,” and it lit up not just the hospitals and drawing rooms of America but its theaters, musical halls, grocery stores, and bookshelves. A song entitled “Radium Dance” became a huge hit after being in the Broadway musical Pif ! Paf ! Pouf! On sale were radium jock straps and lingerie, radium butter, radium milk, radium toothpaste (guaranteeing a brighter smile with every brushing), and even radium-laced face creams, soaps, and compact powders. There was the “Radium Eclipse Sprayer” that “quickly kills all flies, mosquitos, roaches” and “has no equal as a cleaner of furniture, porcelain, and tile. It is harmless to humans and easy to use.”