Nice to see other people with interest in radiation :) The clocks are probably radioactive because of their paint on the watch hands. In the 1930's they used radium paint to make night glowing watch hands. Radium contains radioactive isotopes (Ra-226)
Before people got silly about radiation, radioactive material was used for quite a few consumer products like watch hands, vacuum tubes, uranium glass pottery, lantern mantles. Running around with a scintillation counter (more sensible geiger counter) on a vintage flew marked will usually bring up some items :) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send an email to neonixie-l@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/9d699773-f8ed-491f-a40e-567a33d42485%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.