Prior – 1953, The early age of Rolex luminous, used on their pocket watches, early oyster cases, bubble backs and radiomir Panerai’s.
1953 – 1956, When Rolex introduced the world their sports / utility / tool watch concept with radium Submariner, TOG, Explorer & GMT Master.
1957 – 1960, When Rolex lowered radiation and chanced dial printing from 1 to 2 colored print and enhanced the lacquer to a more glossy variant.
1960 – 1963, The pre ‘Transitional” period with “Exclamation” mark and due to the starting international regulation, again less radioactive luminous.
1963 – 1964, “Transitional” underline of which Rolex switched from Radium to Trtium, delivered dials are “swiss” signed but laminated with tritium.
1964 – 1967, The new generation tritium luminous got added on glossy dials, signing chanced from “Swiss” to “Swiss – T<25” & “T-Swiss-T”.
1967 – 1983, The matte dial with tritium luminous got introduced by Rolex. We see tritium signings variations like T Swiss T<25 or σ T-Swiss-T σ.
1983 – 1997, The last era of the tritium dials when the glossy dial surface came back, now the luminous was added in a added white gold surround.
1998- 2000, LumiNova was invented in 1993 and patented in 1995; Nemoto & Co. Ltd. was contracted in 1998 to provide LumiNova to Switzerland.
2000 – 2008, Super Luminova, a improved version of Luminova, a material that has the same properties as tritium but is not radioactive.
2008 – now, Chroma Light, the new blue-ish colored Super Luminova thats been in use since Rolex patented it.
