Luminous dots fell off face of Air King

[thebutlerdidit]

My 16 year old Air King watch has been perfect.. until all the luminous dots began falling off the face of the watch. They began gathering inside the watch case. You could shake the case and the dots would dance around.

Just got the watch back from repair. It's good as new except, since the face wasn't replaced, the hour markers are no longer luminous. Only the hands.

[Rikki]

Have the dial relumed Rik

[Jan Davis]

Replace the dial with a NOS, if you have it relumed will degrade the value of the watch.

[oneillba]

Very Interesting!

[Art161]

Originally Posted by Jan Davis

Replace the dial with a NOS, if you have it relumed will degrade the value of the watch.

If by NOS you mean a dial that has been sitting around since about 1998 (when Rolex switched from tritium to superluminova), wouldn't it still have little or no lume? The tritium is going to lose most of its lume over that time, whether the dial is in use or sitting in a drawer.

[Jan Davis]

Originally Posted by Art161

If by NOS you mean a dial that has been sitting around since about 1998 (when Rolex switched from tritium to superluminova), wouldn't it still have little or no lume? The tritium is going to lose most of its lume over that time, whether the dial is in use or sitting in a drawer.

as it is authentic and not some dial repair that will degrade the value of the watch.

BTW: 12 years for Tritium to loose it lume.

[sherwin]

Agree with Jan, don't get it relumed, it will not look the same but a NOS dial will look just at home. Don't worry too much about lume.

[Rikki]

Well 15 to 20 years ago having a dial refinished or relumed was the norm now with all the collector nuances with it being original or not things have changed. What's a watchmaker to do hehe Rik

[Jan Davis]

Originally Posted by Rikki

Well 15 to 20 years ago having a dial refinished or relumed was the norm now with all the collector nuances with it being original or not things have changed. What's a watchmaker to do hehe Rik

Well, dial refinishing is a art, not just anyone can restore a dial, that is why we have professionals who only work on dials and not a person wearing several hats calling themselves a watchmaker. Refinished dials fall into two categories professional and junk. Professionals are excellent quality craftsmanship and they are costly, someone like Orchi would not be able to determine if it was repaired. The other is pure junk, some monkey with a paint brush that calls themselves a dial re-finisher that a half blind person could see the quality is piss poor.