Corps of Engineers IWC Cal 65 H6

This one joined the rest of my other CoE watches today, a Cal 65 H6, one that is seldom seen, as there seems to be more Cal 52 to be found.
This Cal 65 seems to have been stowed away for many years, as there is substantial radium burns on the dial. Nevertheless it has the best oxydized silver case that I have seen uptill now and the movement is spotlessly clean. A nice addition to its sister, the Cal 52.

Radium Burnt dial
[](s896.photobucket.com/user/Drdoomuch/media/Corps%20of%20Engineers/CoE%20IWC%20Cal%2065%20H6/P1330202Large_zps27dbde93.jpg.html)
Inside caseback
[](s896.photobucket.com/user/Drdoomuch/media/Corps%20of%20Engineers/CoE%20IWC%20Cal%2065%20H6/P1330208Large_zps7d14c5ef.jpg.html)
Inside dustcover
[](s896.photobucket.com/user/Drdoomuch/media/Corps%20of%20Engineers/CoE%20IWC%20Cal%2065%20H6/P1330211Large_zps878d0783.jpg.html)
Cal 65 Movement
[](s896.photobucket.com/user/Drdoomuch/media/Corps%20of%20Engineers/CoE%20IWC%20Cal%2065%20H6/P1330209Large_zpsc558be07.jpg.html)
Cal 52 Dial
[](s896.photobucket.com/user/Drdoomuch/media/Corps%20of%20Engineers/CoE%20IWC%20Cal%2065%20H6/P1330224Large_zps011afd57.jpg.html)
Brothers in arms
[](s896.photobucket.com/user/Drdoomuch/media/Corps%20of%20Engineers/CoE%20IWC%20Cal%2065%20H6/P1330225Large_zps44474830.jpg.html)
back to back
[](s896.photobucket.com/user/Drdoomuch/media/Corps%20of%20Engineers/CoE%20IWC%20Cal%2065%20H6/P1330227Large_zps54ee8741.jpg.html)

Best Regards

Jimmy

Congrats Jimmy. I did not know there was a CoE with cal 65.
Another must have. I hate when that happens. :-)

Jimmy, superb find and in great shape too.

May I ask what are the full texts on the cal.65 dial?

You may...ULYSSE NARDIN; LOCLE & GENÉVE

You saying that, you of all people, It's the hunt that thrills you, not the kill :-)

Truly superb find, congratulations#

Radium burnt dial...
Hi Jimmy,
I hope you don't mind, but I have difficulties to believe that the dial is Radium "burnt". I have never seen a Radium burnt dial, although I have seen thousands of Radium loaded dials. Many of these W.W. I watches were stocked for many decades and caused no burning on the dial. The radiation, coming from the Radium -226 paint(substance) is too weak to "burn" into the enamal of these dials. It must have been something else. As it is clear that a "print" is visible from the hour and minute hand on the dial, my suspicion is that moist and time have caused this, rather than radioactivity. Just my 2 cents theory.
Kind regards,
Adrian.

Hi Adrian, I am astonished to hear that from you to say the least, I have at least half a dozen Military watches from the WW1 era with Radium burns, but I also have a few from WW2 and other non Military watches from the 40's and 50's that also have Radium burns i.e. Rolex, Breitling etc.
It was probably trial and error as to how much radioactive compound was mixed into the paint in the beginnings, but the "burn" problem on the dials and watch glasses have been amply publicized...
Radium in Vintage Watch Dials
Radium Watch Dials how dangerous?...
Radium girls

Can you imagine what the crystal looked like before Holger replaced it?
[](s896.photobucket.com/user/Drdoomuch/media/Hamilton%20987A/CIMG3847Medium.jpg.html)

Regards

Jimmy

Hi Jimmy,
To speak as you do ...I am asthonised to see the "burning wounds". I never saw this on the watches that passed through my hands. I am not going to counter you for the sake of being right or wrong. Just my physical knowledge, I would like to report. As you know I measured radioactivity of Radium loaded dials in IWC watches. It is known that for the "paint" used on dials, hands and indices the basic material was a greenish powder : Zincsulphide (ZnS). As such, this material is not radioactive. But this powder was mixed with Radium-226. The radioactive Radium-226 was the "engine" to start the glowing in the dark. The radiation power emitted by the Radium-226, evoked that electrons in the ZnS molecules were shooted outside the regular orbit in the ZnS molecules. (Sorry for this physical explanation, it is not going to be worse!) Once being outside of the regular orbit, the ZnS molecules could save their electrons by attracting them again : a fundamental physical law. If an electron falls back into its regular orbit it is for a moment in time a photon. And a photon releases a light flash, visible for the human eye. That is what we see as glowing in the dark. If a radium loaded dial would be loaded with Radium-226 ALONE, there would also be an effect of glowing in the dark. But than the light would not be greenish as it is on watch dials ,but sparkling blue.
Such loaded dials would endanger health seriously and a watch dial with pure Radium-226 of which the half time extinction value is 1600 years, yes 1600!,has been never allowed.
Now back to the ZnS powder mixed with a certain amount of Radium-226. Sure the amount of Radium-226 will not have been fixed in the past, but the key question is :
The colouring of the dial and even the steel of a case : is it caused by burning of a powerful radioactive source, or is it caused by a deteoriation of the compound itself used as a paint on the hands and the indices? Why should a relatively small source of radiation alter an enamal or steel surface? Is the power that great that "burning" wounds develop? Or is it a simple deposit, harmless being the end product of sublimated ZnS on the surface?
I guess it is the latter, but fair enough, I cannot prove it.
Kind regards,
Adrian.

Adrian, there were many different paint mixtures, ZnS wasn't the only catalyizer used...
Here a quote from my second link, maybe a bit long, but comprehendible.

You wrote;

How can the deposit be harmless, when the ZnS source is exauhsted, Radium and all of its next of kin will still be there and radioactive for the next 1600 years, and that would only be the half-life?

Best Regards

Jimmy

Dear Jimmy,
I hope that you like this discussion as much as I do. To share knowledge and to postulate theory's, all of that wrapped in an interesting discussion, is one of the superb possibilities of this Forum.
A few points. Important is that the "glowing in the dark" substance, before 1940 was a mix of always Radium-226 and as you name it a catalyser of different origin , often ZnS. But, with repect, it was the way around. The harmless ZnS was known to glow in the dark, if white or ultra-violet light was shining on it. The same effect was gained, but than continuously, if a radioactive catalyser was mixed with the non-radioactive ZnS or another non-radioactive compound. Before 1940, Radium-226 was the main and prime source of radioactive power on watch dials. Radium-226 transforms into several decay products which on turn are all radioactive : Radon-222, Polonium-218, Astatine-218, Lead-214. But after 1600 years, the Radium-226 radioactive emission is still present for 50 %. A huge mistake and potentially a lethal one is the following. A Radium-226 loaded watch will stop to glow in the dark after some 50 years. This is caused by the fact that the ZnS molecules have been bombed continously for 50x365x24x60 seconds. The harmless ZnS molecules "give up" and desintegrate. No more launched electrons, no more photons that light up. The Radium-226 is still in perfect condition, but does not glow by itself, as the concentration of Radium-226 is too low! What about the stains on the dials?
All I said is that stains as such are not necesarilly caused by "burning" Radium. Rust, so often seen at watch dials causes ugly stains without any radioactivity around. All I am saying is that Radium-226 will not affect enamal or steel in terms of changing the molecules. But as the total compound of glowing in the dark material, decomposes over the years, as explained above,the stains as we see them could be an effect of the decomposed paint, rather than a direct "burning" radiation effect on enamal or steel. Maybe an example of semantics?
Kind regards,
Adrian.

This is what is wonderful about this forum. The knowledge and the civilized exchange of facts and points of view.

Touche
This is the quintessence of our discussion...En garde :-)

Adrian, I have seen and I own dials (and crystals) where the stains were/are not reversible, which, to me indicates something has got into the structure of the dial material and glass to cause a discolouration, always to the brown side, never ever another colour. I was on the phone today with our mutual watchmaker Holger, and he confirmed my observations.
He has probably seen more discoloured dials and glasses than I have.
Only a few weeks ago, I was thinking of buying a Geiger counter which the MoD was letting go, with quite a recent calibration certificate, I now wish I'd have bought it. I'll get another, because I also want to get to the bottom of this phenomena.
Personally, I believe there are watches out there, where the radiation emittance is at least a factor 10 more than others, and I would like to measure it myself, I also suspect these watches with the hands forever imprinted in the dials are a direct result of this. I'll let you know my findings when I am done ;-)
I have a good friend from a long, long time ago,who studied Atomic and Astro Physics, he promovated and worked at DESY for several years, sadly we lost contact with one another and the last I heard he was lecturing Astro Physics in Berkeley... I should get in contact with him again, but I fear he'd probably laugh at me if I confronted him with such a trivial matter!
What are our millierems compared to the powers of a black hole or a supernova? ;-)

Adrian, we shall get to the roots of this or my name's not...
Keep up the good work.

Jimmy

Adrian, Jimmy, I look forward to the next "chapter" in this most interesting saga.

I thank you for the debate and interesting view points.

Keep it up!

Very interesting topic and thoughts, thanks for posting, Jimmy.

I discussed it with my watchmaker.

His proposal is: Try to clean the dial with hydrogen peroxide.

If it disappears, it is probably a kind of rust.

Would be interesting to know the result.

Regards

HEBE

Jimmy and Adrian, thanks for your more than interesting posts.
As António mentions, share the knowledge and exchange the facts that's the bottom line that keeps the forum going on.
Refreshing to read after a longer absence.

Best
Hajo

Jimmy,
I very much appreciate your efforts to sort this out to the utmost! It would be great to read the comments of specialists. But as I tried to explain : the word "burning" means to me : damaging the surface of a material by heat or in this case by radioactive radiation. My postulation is that Radium-226 will not alter the molecules in enamel(SiO2) nor in steel (Fe). There will be an extreme thin layer of discouloring, caused by a deposit of intact or desintegrated material, originally applied as glowing in the dark paint. The discouloring of rust is caused by an oxydation process : Fe oxydises and becomes Fe2O3 (rust). Examzning the surface of an iron or steel watch that shows rust, will reveal a significant change of the surface : the shiny steel (Fe) is now redbrown rust (Fe2O3). Examening a steel surface bombed by Radium-226 will not show Fe2O3,just Fe!
If you would have an extreme sensitive Geiger Counter, I would be not suprised to find radioactivity on the surface of a dial, some milimeters away from the glowing in the dark substance, applied in the indices or hands
Even that would not be called "burning". In practise the commercially available Geiger counters wil not bring the answer if one measures radioactivity right in the glowing in the dark substance or 2 millimeter away from it. I am stubborn, I sincerely hope you are too!
Kind regards,
Adrian.

What a great topic to surface on Hajo, welcome back...

Adrian, you assume the dials are layered with enamel(SiO2), which is also quartz (sand)...If the radiation dosis is high enough, the gamma rays although nearly negledgible, coming from Radium-226 will discolour Si0² over time...Please read here;Radiation Processing for Glass Coloration

Here from Wiki...
Source: Hazards

Another fact just occured to me, look at the dial of the CoE watch again, you will notice the hour-hand shadow/discolouration is more intense than the minute-hand shadow, the hour hand is closer to the dial than the minute hand (coincidence)????

The ball is in your court ;-)
Great topic, it's about time I used my grey cells again :-)

Best Regards

Jimmy

Hi Jimmy,
You got me!
About 7 years ago, I was the first author of an article : Experiments With Radioluminescent Dials From IWC Watches.
For that article I did a lot of research, but I did not found that gamma-rays were capable to color glass. Glass is for a large percentage SiO2 and by adding elements such as Sodium, Borium, Calcium etc. the properties of glass and its melting point are changed. Enamel is for a large part glass but contains more minerals and elements than glass. Physically enamel will act very much as glass . I know this from my experience, when I worked as a young chemical assistant in a glass laboratory, at Philips, Eindhoven, The Netherlands , from 1963-1970.
Back to the "burning". The color of the stains , caused by Radium-226 paint is brown, varying from amber to dark brown. This is in concordance with the facts that you show on the old enamel dials.
The match ends : 1-0 for Jimmy.
Remarkable is the fact that I read about the reversibility of the coloring.
The "burning" effect can be reversed by putting the colored glass(enamel) in an oven at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for a couple of hours. In such way the "burning wound" developed during half a century, can be "burnt" away. I guess no watchmaker has ever tried to do that with an affected dial, but it would be worth to try this! Further , your quoted article makes clear that the affected material is obviously not radioactive and you thouht differently.
That is minor. (looking for a return match)
Kind regards,
Adrian,
(alwaysiwc).