Rolex

Hoping to tap into the collective watch wisdom here. I’m considering the late 1980s 5513 pictured here. As you can see, there’s more patina on the markers than the hands. I’m told that the lume on the hands is in fact tritium. A couple of questions. First, does the patina differential between the hands and markers suggest that the hands were replaced at some point, or is that common even in examples where the hands are original? Second, does this patina difference matter much from a collectability perspective? Many thanks for your thoughts.

The texture is hard to appreciate on the hands with these pictures.  If you have a black light you can test to see how they glow.  If they are all of the same temperature and luminosity it could just be nature.

The difference in colour is between the tritium (markers) and the lumknova (hands) lume. I'll send you a photo later...

To be clear, I have it on good authority that the hands are tritium and NOT luminova. So if the hands were replaced, it was with other tritium hands.

But then, they were not replaced. Below you can see what used to happen to the hands lume from the eighties.



I would follow Bill's advice, let's check the luminosity!

What Mary Anny is true: get a black light and check for yourself. No one here needs to convince you of anything.

The seller — who I trust completely — has confirmed the hands are tritium (he used the black light test). So that’s not the question. Instead, my questions are these.

- First, given that everything is tritium, how likely is it that these are replacement hands? I will ask the seller to send me black light photos, as Bill suggests, but my guess is that black light will reveal differences between the hands and the markers, even if not as much as visible light does. Thus, to judge whether the hands are original, it would also be helpful to know if anyone here has experience with the hands of a vintage sub developing a patina at a different rate from the patina on the markers. If that experience commonly happens in nature, there’s less of a reason to suspect the hands were replaced.

- Second, whether the hands are original or not, how big of a deal is the color difference from a collectability perspective (again on the assumption that the hands are tritium, not luminova).

Again, many thanks for the input. Apologies if my original post was unclear in any respect.

The hands are replacements. A backlight is to determine if they are matching. As mentioned, hands with different ages will glow with different luminosity or colour so the advice is correct.

Hands that are original can, sometimes, be a different colour than the dial but it is usually a sign of them being replaced. Again a blacklight will typically highlight this.

As for if it matters... Thats a personal question for you. You're the buyer so does it matter to you?

It’s one of the things that matters to me. But so is overall case condition, and the condition here is quite excellent. I’m trying to get a sense of whether, despite the patina issue, this watch should be considered a superlative example of a 5513 of its vintage. I’m getting the sense the answer is no, whether or not black light shows the hands are original.

If you are buying the watch to wear and enjoy, follow your heart!

to know that I must always build into my purchase decisions the risk I will decide to sell someday, no matter how much I love a watch today.

On those hands being tritium. They sure look like Luminova to me. Also, wasn’t tritium use stopped in the 90’s? If they replaced with new hands from that era, the tritium would still not be as white as that after 20 yrs, no?

Tritium seems to lume at very different rates depending in part on how much the watch is exposed to light, which explains how you can still find lume from the early 90s that doesn’t have much patina.

Also, the hands *may* have also been repainted with tritium. There are people who do this even today.

That the hands were replaced during a service. This happened to me as well after I sent in my 861 Omega Speedmaster Pro in for service. They didn’t change the dial which had tritium but the hands were updated to Luminova. I’ll admit it does bother me a bit but I’ve gotten used to it. After experiencing this, when I got my Blancpain Flyback serviced, I told them that I was concerned about the dial and hands looking mismatched when coming back, so they immediately suggested I replace the dial as well. I agreed and am very happy with the result as the watch dial and hands are matched and it looks like a new watch. As far as retaining value, it’s probably better if the hands are not changed or you can get your old hands back, but they normally will not do that. Below you can see the difference between the two watches when they came back after service. The Luminova hands on the Speedy shine brightly and for a long time in the dark whereas the tritium indices on the dial simply fade out. It’s a little annoying to be honest. That’s why I prefer to have it all match. 

Matching hands are not always easy to find and tritium hands degrade and will not always match the rate of the dial.

I’m new to the vintage sub game so I appreciate your insights. The appeal of this 5513 is that it’s (1) a clean two-liner and (2) unpolished. In those two respects it has an advantage over my existing vintage sub, the 16800 pictured here. But this thread has helped me decide I’ll wait for an even better 5513 to come up for sale.

Vintage is a little harder to navigate so it can take time as each piece has its character.  Your last couple 666 and 16800 are both solid classic work horses and great examples.

Much appreciated as always. Btw, I ended up keeping the 16800 but not the triple six. Cool watch but didn’t sit right on my wrist.

The hands were likely changed or lume reapplied during service. Is there a record of service?
For some this may be a point of contention. For others it isn’t. Collectibility depends on the price. If you’re paying for all original details then I would stay away. But if it’s a good deal, and you don’t care, then it’s worth it.
Personally I find it interesting to have a watch with different color lume. But only at a great price.