You can also get some pretty high wow-factor visual effects with Super-LumiNova that have much better permanence than they would have with radioluminescent pigments Bovet has used the material to great effect in the Récital 22 Grand Récital, as has MB&F in the Black Badger collab version of its Starfleet Machine. The Radium Dial Company was one of a few now defunct United States companies, along with the United States Radium Corporation, involved in the painting of. Still, it is a disadvantage of the material relative to the always-on glow of radioluminescent solutions (which is part of the appeal of Luminox and Ball). 'When one of USRC's senior chemists died of aplastic anemia in 1925, it became obvious that there was a connection,' Stemm says. The disadvantage of Super-LumiNova in comparison to radioluminescent material is of course that its brightness fades until it's recharged by another exposure to light.Personally I've found that with most of the sports watches I've owned over the years, if my eye's dark-adapted the watch remains legible, with some difficulty, through most of the night. In the 1920s, several US watch companies produced glow in the dark dials painted with radio-luminescent paint, composed of zinc sulfide (ZnS) mixed with. submitted a falsified version of the report to New Jersey officials and suppressed its findings, continuing to refute the idea that its radium dial paint was making anyone sick. 1987.Strontium aluminate is a much more efficient phosphor than zinc sulfide – it's about ten times as bright and glows about ten times longer and the color can vary between various shades of green and blue, with blue supposedly producing the longest glow time, and green offering better brightness. A key point to bear in mind is this: the dial is still highly radioactive. A radium dial clock from the 1930s.Source: Hodinkee. Population from Consumer Products and Miscellaneous Sources. Radium dials usually lose their ability to glow in the dark in a period ranging anywhere from a few years to several decades, but all will cease to glow at some point. National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements. Radium was also used to make luminous paints for watch dials, clocks, glow in the dark buttons, and military instruments. Estimates of the average dose to the gonads for someone wearing such a watch ranged from 0.5 to 3 mrem per year. What are the uses of Radium In the early 1900s, radium was wrongly used to treat rheumatism and mental disorders and as a general tonic. The last wristwatches to employ radium-containing radioluminescent paint were produced in the U.S. Things probably got a little worse for him a couple of years down the road. Although the fellow that it was awarded to is undoubtedly long gone, you can't help but feel good knowing that he was on top of his game in 1927. In the early 1900s glow-in-the-dark clock and watch faces had the digits painted.

The above photograph shows the back side of the watch. When a radium salt is mixed with a paste of zinc sulfide, the alpha radiation causes the zinc sulfide to glow, yielding a self-luminescent paint for watch, clock, and instrument dials. Radium dials are radioluminescent watch, clock and other instrument dials.

Of course, it is in the collection because it has a radium dial. And although it is hard to tell from the photo, it has 'Chevrolet' marked on the top front. For reasons that become obvious when you look at the back of the watch, it takes the shape of a Chevrolet car grill. This watch is in terrible shape (a missing hand, missing crystal, worn face), but it has character.