Through the Porthole… #3 - Fluva Geneve and the Felsa Bidynator

I’m surprised at the power reserve, perhaps I’m just lucky here. Maybe this one has had a service in recent years?

They are solid movements. I think that’s what I want the take away from this one to be. Then again, I don’t think many people are going to care about a small eulogy to a forgotten early automatic movement. Perhaps I should slag off Tudor again?

I think that reserve is the first thing to go. I will bet that neither has ever had a mainspring replaced. Over the years they have been probably have regulated to compensate for the spring losing its elasticity. These are great vintage automatic movements. Most of what is available at the bottom end of the vintage pool are mechanical movements. Those are easier to maintain. It has been nearly two years since I could get my Omega automatic to work as well as a Bidynator, and it is 20 years newer.

It is not quite a eulogy yet, these are still working in all sorts of jobbers and they can be had for a song.

I’m not knowledgable of moments but I can tell a beautiful dial. This is one great one!

I was thinking as I read this that you often warn us not to lick radium dials.

Today my mind wondered down the rabbit hole of researching the actual levels of radiation that comes off these things.

I found this interesting:

A 2018 study by researchers from the University of Northampton found that a collection of 30 vintage military watches with radium dials kept in an small, unventilated room produced a radon concentration 134 times greater than the UK's recommended "safe" level.

Everyone stresses about Rolex being a dangerous watch to wear, while all these vintage pieces be low-key irradiating us.

The radiation stops at your skin. Without looking it up I will wager that 134 times the "safe" level is not abnormally unsafe, because that level is set so low. Usually when I wade into radiation arguments there is no conclusion, because everyone retreats to their priors.

I have never seen, and I have looked, any reported case of an ill health effect from wearing or owning a watch with radium on the dial. You would think that we have had 60 plus years to detect one. Lick them at your own risk. Watchmakers should wear masks if airborne particles are involved.

I believe the study @Deeperblue mentioned looks at Radon gas. Could that stop at the skin?

I also believe there are studies that relate Radon exposure to lung cancer and paired with the measurements from the 30 watches and an individual's time in their vicinity, it should give a decent, quantitative (probably some sort of excess odds ratio) estimate of how, normally or abnormally, unsafe these dials are, no?

Find one person who has suffered ill effects from merely owning or wearing such a watch. I read the study's conclusions. The larger danger from radon is having homes that are too well insulated. The radon from soil is the primary source. The link between radon and lung cancer is extrapolated from studies done with uranium miners. The statistical conjecture may be right, but the risk is nevertheless small.

I’m surprised at the power reserve, perhaps I’m just lucky here. Maybe this one has had a service in recent years?

They are solid movements. I think that’s what I want the take away from this one to be. Then again, I don’t think many people are going to care about a small eulogy to a forgotten early automatic movement. Perhaps I should slag off Tudor again?

That’s what really gets the engagement.

It is obviously impossible to find an individual who suffered illness because of or merely due to owning such a watch, illness doesn't come with a tag that would reveal its cause. So, with all due respect, that demand is silly.

Either way, I never said that the effects were large or significantly larger, just quantifiable. And with that all I tried to imply is that descriptors such as "large" or "small" neither make sense (it certainly makes no sense to argue about them) because they are subjective, nor are they necessary. The number is what the number is. Once its meaning is understood, it is up to the individual to decide whether it is "large" or "small".

If the argument is put forth that old watches with radium on the dials are somehow dangerous to the owner than the proponent of the argument must make the prima facie case. This involves evidence. What part of demanding some, any, evidence is "silly"? And further, what part of that study says "quantifiable" to you?

30 watches (a quantity and a variable)

1 unventilated room (a quantity and also a variable)

increased radon levels in that room (a quantity)

increased cancer risk due to any particular watch or watches = ?

What is the risk and how is it quantified?

The link between radon exposure and lung cancer is statistical. As you stated, most diseases do not leave a calling card. However, this link was discovered because uranium miners contracted lung cancer at a rate that mere chance and smoking did not explain. Studies were conducted and the link was established. (Smoking is another variable which is hard to tease out, but it is the primary external cause of lung cancer.) The link between smoking and lung cancer was established this same way: an observant doctor (Alton Ochsner, among others) noticed that increased smoking rates in servicemen in WWI lead to a higher incidence of lung cancer. Empirical observations led to longitudinal studies which established the link.

Where are the studies regarding ex-servicemen and collectors showing any statistical increase in lung cancer? Where are the empirical observations that would justify the study?

Radon was used in pocket watches (oddly, the largest radiation emitter in the study by far was a Swiss pocket watch which really has nothing to do with wristwatches) and wristwatches for decades ending in the 1960's. That is plenty of time for the risk of radiun on wristwatch dials to be observed and studied. Why haven't such studies been funded? Because no one has observed the risk. The best that we have is UNESCO throwing money around to have radon levels tested in an unventilated room. The variable that explains the finding is the unventilated room.

Edit: I always feel a little like Nathan Thurm when I make these arguments. Those retainer payments from Big Radium pay the bills though.

So my take away from this is that radium dials are perfectly safe and I don't have to stop licking them?? 🥳

Awesome news! I was starting to get a bit worried about that intractable aching in my jaw, but I shall put it to the back of my mind now!

Can't wait till the next vintage watch fair.

Is it bad form to lick a watch before you buy it?

One must use all of one's senses in evaluating a vintage watch purchase.

What about licking other peoples watches?

I'm just thinking, because we've got this meet up in a few days.

If the argument is put forth that old watches with radium on the dials are somehow dangerous to the owner than the proponent of the argument must make the prima facie case. This involves evidence. What part of demanding some, any, evidence is "silly"? And further, what part of that study says "quantifiable" to you?

30 watches (a quantity and a variable)

1 unventilated room (a quantity and also a variable)

increased radon levels in that room (a quantity)

increased cancer risk due to any particular watch or watches = ?

What is the risk and how is it quantified?

The link between radon exposure and lung cancer is statistical. As you stated, most diseases do not leave a calling card. However, this link was discovered because uranium miners contracted lung cancer at a rate that mere chance and smoking did not explain. Studies were conducted and the link was established. (Smoking is another variable which is hard to tease out, but it is the primary external cause of lung cancer.) The link between smoking and lung cancer was established this same way: an observant doctor (Alton Ochsner, among others) noticed that increased smoking rates in servicemen in WWI lead to a higher incidence of lung cancer. Empirical observations led to longitudinal studies which established the link.

Where are the studies regarding ex-servicemen and collectors showing any statistical increase in lung cancer? Where are the empirical observations that would justify the study?

Radon was used in pocket watches (oddly, the largest radiation emitter in the study by far was a Swiss pocket watch which really has nothing to do with wristwatches) and wristwatches for decades ending in the 1960's. That is plenty of time for the risk of radiun on wristwatch dials to be observed and studied. Why haven't such studies been funded? Because no one has observed the risk. The best that we have is UNESCO throwing money around to have radon levels tested in an unventilated room. The variable that explains the finding is the unventilated room.

Edit: I always feel a little like Nathan Thurm when I make these arguments. Those retainer payments from Big Radium pay the bills though.

I don't disagree with that. I never said I think these dials are dangerous. I just said you get a transparently obtained number, no?

My initial statement voiced (a) confusion regarding the skin comment and (b) I tried to "explain" why defaulting to the prior might be the expected (and in a way correct) behaviour in that argument.

As I stated earlier, the number is obtained in a fully disclosed way. You can disagree with the methodology and how the link was established. I don't mind that but I can see validity in the demand that studies be conducted on subjects with prolonged exposure to the actual thing whose, still statistical, findings will suffer from less unknowns and make fewer assumptions. Certainly more reasonable than demanding evidence that isn't statistical in its nature. All clinical studies are like that on some level.

Are the parameters contrived? I would say they certainly are chosen to make headlines and pull funding. It is the scientific equivalent of burning watches and exploding heads in YouTube thumbnails. That said, with enough time and effort, one could likely extrapolate these findings to a bigger and/or ventilated room. In a sufficiently large and well ventilated room this would yield to levels that are at least much closer to "safe", surely not 100x over.

However, and this is what I actually tried to say in what I called "point (b)" in the first section, if someone thinks that any additional radiation is too much because (as small as it may be) there is a (statistical) chance of increased cancer, then that is their opinion. Once someone understand the numbers, there is no point in arguing them. If someone doesn't understand the numbers (edit: and that includes the way they were obtained) and makes "ignorant leaps" then there is no point in arguing them either, you always lose against ignorance. This leads me to conclude that there is nothing to argue, just read the facts and make up your (as educated as possible) opinion (edit: and that includes judging how "applicable" and "relevant" said number is to you) at which point one will always default back to that, and rightfully so.

So that people can see what we are not arguing about here is a link to the summary of the study. The University, unusually, does not link to an abstract. A little further reading indicates that radon research in general is a hotly debated topic among researchers. The most debated topics are the level of risk and the cost of remediation given the level of risk. Both sides agree that opening a window from time to time is a good idea.

Well, I don't disagree (again) and in fact that's what I meant with the "exploding head thumbnail", i.e. it is presented Nico Leonard style with exciting headlines.

In their actual work (poster)

The normal radon concentration at the maximum ventilation rate was ca. 10 Bq m–3. This rose to ca. 190-230 Bq m–3 following the placement of the watches in the room, again at maximum ventilation. When the ventilation rate decreased to a ‘standby’ setting, the radon concentration increased rapidly to ca. 2-3 kBq m–3, then decreased rapidly to the lower concentration when the ventilation rate returned to maximum.!

which is much less exciting ("We found that radiation is measurably higher but in a sufficiently well ventilated room still close to safe limits" - yeah no sh!t...) than their news release. But it is the same "number" (it is of course more a function of several variables such as room size and ventilation but this is a watch forum not an exam 😉).

Edit: What I tried to suggest (in response to your, shall we say "frustration", of everyone defaulting to their prior belief) is that anyone who deems these numbers relevant (or not) and high (or low) won't change their mind because someone else thinks differently, so an argument makes no sense?

so the Fluva is a nice watch…

so the Fluva is a nice watch…

Nice post. You two vintage junkies always inspire me to do something else. I think my next piece will be on radiation. I've written a few comments on it, but may be worth doing another tech post.

In the same vein I think @Deeperblue should do a post on how different dials taste. It will be yet another "useful" spec we must know. Just remember Alpha radiation has a half-life of about 4 days so take at least a week between tastings.

I don’t recommend licking them at all - I’d even go as far as saying if you are squeamish at all regarding rads then just avoid anything pre 1970 that looks like it may have had lume, be it on the dial or on the hands. You can get the look without the risk by going for something like Baltany or Kuoe Kyoto. Seriously, it’s a rabbit hole and have of us say we’re fine, and others get very fidgety. They eventually phased out radium, tritium, promethium, and all that, more to the risk of the applicators/manufacturers rather than the wearers, so read into that what you will, but leaving watches in an unventilated room would really cause an issue. I sometimes deal with radon and methane via ground gas ventilation control in my line of work - we build in vents and membranes for this sort of thing structurally, so as long as you have airflow it dissipates naturally.