Best Tools I Ever Bought

[Canuk]

I have to admit to paying over the odds for a nice example of this tool. When in Rome, buy Campagnolo!

 

[RobLoasby]

Radium (Ra-226) or Promethium (Pm-147),n was used until the middle of the 90ties fur watch dials and avionics displays. Radium was (and still is) quite a fierce beta emitter with a half life of 12.3 years. But even full force on your wrist, you still only being irradiated with 1/100th of your yearly safe dose per year.

Back in the 1960s, the GPO (later BT) brought out the Trimphone. One of its selling points was a luminous dial, containing tritium. The central stores, where thousands of them ended up being stored, were told to take radiation precautions, and they were soon withdrawn and the dials passed on to the UK Atomic Energy Authority for them to safely dispose of.