Watch Dials - Radium, Elgin Watch Co, Illinois, United States of America, 1920s-1930s

Record summary

Held and catalogued by Museums Victoria, Melbourne (object number ST 39770), this is a watch dials by Elgin National Watch Co, made in Elgin, Illinois, United States of America, dated 1920–1930. The Atlas places it in the Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking period (1900 – 1945) of its Movements & Components collection. Recorded dimensions: 4 cm (Outside Diameter). The record is illustrated with 3 photographs.

Assembled from the source record's structured fields. Dates and attributions are given as the source states them; where a field is missing the Atlas leaves it blank rather than estimating.

Catalogue description

Atlas type guide

Dials and hands

Dials record both fashion and technology. Early watches had engraved metal dials; champlevé dials with raised numerals dominated around 1680–1730, followed by white vitreous enamel, guilloché gold and silver dials, and printed metal dials in the twentieth century. Luminous paints — radium from c. 1910, tritium from c. 1960 and non-radioactive pigments from the late 1990s — answered the need for legibility in the dark.

Because dials are visible and easily damaged, they were often restored or replaced. Distinguishing original dials from 'redials', and original hands from later replacements, is one of the main tasks of identification and authentication.

General guidance written by the Atlas editors about this kind of object. It is not a statement about this particular piece; for that, rely on the source record above and on physical examination.