Question: is lume stronger on later Daytona 116500LNs?

[daOnlyBG]

Hi- I had initially asked this in the main channel, but thought I'd move it to the technical one.

A while back (last year perhaps) I remember hearing/reading that at some point, post pandemic, later examples of the 116500 Daytonas (white dial, if it matters) had stronger lume than the earlier ones.

I don't remember where I had heard it. Could have been here, could have been overheard at a trade show, could have been at an AD.

I don't want to spread misinformation, so I'd like to clarify that I'm only asking whether there's any truth to this, or if the lume has been consistent among the entire 116500LN production.

Thanks in advance

[padi56]

Originally Posted by daOnlyBG

Hi- I had initially asked this in the main channel, but thought I'd move it to the technical one.

A while back (last year perhaps) I remember hearing/reading that at some point, post pandemic, later examples of the 116500 Daytonas (white dial, if it matters) had stronger lume than the earlier ones.

I don't remember where I had heard it. Could have been here, could have been overheard at a trade show, could have been at an AD.

I don't want to spread misinformation, so I'd like to clarify that I'm only asking whether there's any truth to this, or if the lume has been consistent among the entire 116500LN production.

Thanks in advance

The only change in Lume was the change from luminover more on the green spectrum to later chromolight more on the blue spectrum.But depends on the person's eyes which is brighter many say the blue chromolight is brighter.

[Tools]

Luminova and so called Super Luminova are the same patented mix and have not changed since invented in the early '90s.

What has happened is the Japanese maker of Luminova has built a factory in Switzerland that opened in ~1999/2000, and changed the name of the paint made there for watch manufacturers to Super Luminova. The newer Chromalite is just another color of Luminova.

[daOnlyBG]

Thank you Padi and Tools- much appreciated.

I do remember that even within the Chromalight production, Rolex made subtle changes to the mixture- a good example is the Explorer II; if I recall correctly, the very new reference (2022 release?) saw a slight change in the Chromalight to make it glow longer. So I was curious if Rolex did something similar with the Daytonas.

I'm guessing that even if they did, it would have been one of those incremental improvements that they don't explicitly advertise publicly, though someone might have knowledge about it (a collector, watchmaker, w/e).

[brandrea]

Interesting that blue seems to fall in the middle.

I believe the 321 uses the C3. That watch had the best lume I’ve ever seen