Vintage Patina

[Soarteeth]

21195EA5-B8DF-4264-AC98-9CA0BF3C622E.jpeg

I rediscovered my fathers Rolex while going thru my recently deceased mother’s jewelry. I’m thinking she must have had it serviced after he died in 1993 because
there was a clear plastic film covering the crystal. I’ve been wearing it for the past couple days and it seems to be in good working order, keeping time with my Datejust 41. I want to keep it that way so I can hand it down to my son.

I like the patina but worry about the staining around the radium dots at the 3, 6 and 12 positions and there is some pitting on the minute and hour hands.
I plan on sending it in for servicing so the movement can be cleaned and the seals replaced.

My question is what will happen if I don’t do anything about the radium stains? Can it be removed without effecting the patina or the dots?
Can the pitting on the hands be polished out without damaging the radium strips?

The steel jubilee bracelet is in fairly good shape no real scratches and the clasp is tight. Again I’m not sure if I should have it polished or not. The vintage value of the watch is not a concern, I plan on making sure it stays in the family.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or suggestions on what to do or not to do.

Steve

[Paul David Thorpe]

Looks fab as it is - Quadrant stepped dial is beautiful and rare. There is no dial rot, lume plots and dial edge look stable and will hardly change over next 20 yrs. If you try and clean up dial and hands it might leave a lighter odd marks below. OCC (not SCOC) dial means it is pre-59 ish.

[Nick9]

The consensus I’ve observed is that trying to clean a vintage dial very often leads to much worse result, and there are countless examples of dial cleaning gone bad. I’d also say your dial already looks great, attractive patina.

I’d be tempted to improve the hands, but would hope to avoid a shiny, new-liking result — that would imho take away from the overall vintage look.

Great watch; good luck with it.

[Dan S]

Based on that photo, the dial printing doesn't look original to me, but perhaps it is due to the low-res photo. In any case, I wouldn't mess with it. It looks ok as is. Sometimes a watchmaker can clean up the hands slightly, but again, I wouldn't try anything aggressive. Not worth the risk.

[TimeLord2]

A very cool watch with the usual patina associated with time. It looks good and is a wonderful keepsake!

[1665fan]

I would keep the patina, it tells the story….

[zapokee]

Leave as is. I'm not sure anybody will work with radium these days, anyway...

[TuRo]

Rolex Oyster Perpetual 34
Been trying to find a similar piece I suspect it's a 6581 and this one (below) has a similar cross-hair/quadrant stepped dial, but the text and lume plots are different i.e. more crisp writing and not so new looking hr lume dots....so Dan might be on to something ref a possible refinish years ago. Need to put it under a 50x to see properly . Either way nice watch and I'd keep it as is.
£3,670
https://chrono24.app/rolex/j36390-ro...GB&SETCURR=GBP

[TuRo]

Originally Posted by zapokee

Leave as is. I'm not sure anybody will work with radium these days, anyway...

A high % of all the watches SHWR work with are radium, there really is no major issue or concern from them. You do have to be careful if radium dust accumulates inside an acrylic or mvt and take precautions when cleaning it eg gloves/mask though of course, granted.