I bet you didnt know that

JRant wrote: »

As late as the mid 1940's radioactive products were still being sold to the general public.

They do mention clocks, but radium dialled watches were going well into the 1960's. Then for luminous dials they went to Tritium. Far less "hot", but still radioactive. That went on into the 90's in standard form, with a foray into promethium in the 80's(very short half life to drive the glow, two years IIRC). Today you can buy Tritium dialled watches where the tritium is encapsulated in vials to reduce the exposure by a large amount(down to basically nothing).

With all these "luminous" dials, the radioactive substance itself doesn't luminess, it charges the phosphorescent material mixed with it. You know your usual luminous watch these days that glows after exposure to the sun? Well the old style radium/promethium/tritium takes the place of the sun. Radium was so active it burnt out the phosphorescent material within a couple of years(early wiristwatch adverts guaranteed two years glowing). However, even though the old dials don't glow anymore, the radium, with (IIRC) a half life of over 1500 years is still as active and potentially deadly today.

Here's one of my personal hoard of World War One "trench" watches. Avec radium dial.

Almost certainly painted by hand by a "Radium Girl". No longer glows, but is hot as fook. The flip top lid is of all things a "shrapnel guard". Like that would help... The radiation is cut quite appreciably when the lid is down. The case and lid is silver so maybe that's it? Silver is quite dense a metal. I'd expect the much rarer gold cases would cut the radiation even more.

Carry wrote: »

A horrible death for the sake of luminous clock-faces.

The watches were much worse C. Because the numerals were so small, they were instructed to point their brushes by first wetting them with their lips and the ingested crazy levels of radium this way. So may died, but they fought hard in the courts until they did. A landmark case in worker's health. In the face of the 19th century attitude towards workers as glorified slaves. Never mind women workers. Those "radium girls" were true heroines of humanity, the lot of them. Most died and died appallingly, but for me personally what fascinates is quite a few didn't die at the time and a couple lived normal length lives. People differ I suppose.

The only non-human or puppet to testify before Congress was Elmo in 2002. He was making an appeal for increased funding for new music education programmes.

RIGOLO wrote: »

Is that a German or British 'Trench' watch ? Just curious , who were they given too.

That one is British. At that stage they were rarely bought by and issued from army stores in WW1(the Americans sometimes issued them. The US Signal Corp for example). They were almost all private purchases, mostly by the officer class as they were an expensive item. About the equivalent of ten weeks wages for the average worker. Some have engravings that show they were bought by groups of family and friends, or coworkers, for men going to war. Some were bought by groups of soldiers for sergeants and the like who they respected.

Generally at the start of the 20th century wristwatches were a very rare item for men. They were seen as a "woman's watch". Most men, if they had a watch had a pocket watch. By World War 2 militaries started to issue wristwatches to the average soldier as their tactical advantages were clear. Since many if not most ordinary enlisted men came from less well off backgrounds they didn't have a watch of their own, or they had a more dressy affair not suitable for military use. Most armies, allied and axis had such programmes. Some like the German examples were paid off as a deduction from the soldiers pay. The German issued time only watches cost about the equivalent of 7-800 euro today. US forces got them essentially free as part of their kit.

These days watches are rarely issued as a Casio costing a tenner will do the job and military time is ever present across radios and satnavs and the like.