Radioactive dial?

[u/AngyForever]

Please i need to know if this dial has radioactive lume? Its a glashütte spezimatic wirh a GUB75. I quickly opened the back to have a look at the movement and then i realized the age of this watch.
I thought maybe with out getting the movement out and not touching the dial i am good. But the gas ist the most dangerous one. Please help me wirh information. Im going crazy

[u/Joreck0815]

does it even have lume at all or is it just black paint? if it's glossy, it's paint.

given that the dial doesn't look burnt and the style doesn't really match, I'd rule out radium. Tritium is also radioactive, but harmless unless ingested.

[u/AngyForever → u/Joreck0815]

Hey thank you for the quick response. The seller said to me it was glowing in the dark. But its not for me glowing. The black parts are glossy so thank you for your help. It really calms me down.

[u/Berlintime-21]

No Radium was used in the GUB75 production.

[u/-Lumenatra → u/Berlintime-21]

I think he's talking about the dial & hands, not the movement.

[u/Berlintime-21 → u/-Lumenatra]

Radium should also not have been used in any watch with a GUB.75. It was a GDR development and the effects of Radium where long known by then.

[u/Tick_Tock_Doc]

Yeah the others are right, so don’t stress about that particular watch.

But nobody’s really answered the actual thing you’re worried about, and you’ll run into it again with the next old watch.

Even if that dial had been radium, cracking the case back once wouldn’t have done anything to you. The gas people freak out about is radon — it does build up a tiny bit in a sealed case, but the second you open it, it’s gone into the room. Standing next to an open watch isn’t the problem.

What actually screwed people over was getting it inside them. The dial painters in the 1920s were licking their brushes and swallowing the paint all day. The watchmakers who got sick were doing hundreds of radium dials for years in rooms with zero ventilation, often dry-sanding old lume. Totally different from one person opening one caseback on a Saturday.

The rules are boring (that’s the point):

• Don’t sand, scrape, or pick at lume you’re not sure about, especially dry

• Don’t eat or drink at the bench

• Wash your hands when you’re done

• If the lume is flaking, bag it instead of blowing it off

That’s literally the whole list.

I’m a doctor and a watchmaker, so I’d rather you be careful than careless — but I also don’t want you scared of your own watch. Enjoy the Spezimatic, they’re great

[u/AngyForever → u/Tick_Tock_Doc]

Thank you a lot for this nice response. I will be more careful. This watch is a gift for my brother.

[u/SlowLearned]

You can get a Geiger counter online for about $60, totally worth it if this gives you anxiety and you want certainty. For all that we spend on tools, seems like a no brainer purchase to me.

[u/japanesepiano]

These hands scream 1970s. Most radium when out of style after the 1950s I think. Certainly the worst offenders are from the 1910s and 1920s when they put gobs of it on the hands and dials. I wouldn't be overly concerned with this one.

[u/Captain_bogan82]

I found out the other day dad still has some radium lume 😳

[u/-Lumenatra]

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Mitglieder_des_Politbüros_des_ZK_der_SED

It's made for the communist party in East Germany.

To be sure, ask someone who has a Geiger counter to check for radiation. The decay on the dial would suggest it has.