Remember that rather stunning-looking Radiomir PAM604 with the hand-engraved case that we showed you hands-on last April? Well, if you thought that was cool, then you’ll be glad to hear that Panerai is upping the ante with the new Panerai Radiomir Firenze 3 Days PAM672, a new special edition of just 99 pieces announced today, that now boasts both a hand-engraved stainless steel case as well as a laser-engraved in-house movement.
Panerai tells some great stories (read the top ten Panerai stories here). The Radiomir 1940 PAM00622 looks like a simple two-hand watch with a chocolate brown dial matching a vintage-look leather strap, with a lovely hand-wound 3 Hertz movement visible through the sapphire caseback. And that’s what it is, but it is also a tribute to an unfamiliar episode in the brand’s history.
Panerai has just announced the release of their most highly complicated watch featuring two of their brand new minute repeaters (to chime in two time zones, naturally) and a price tag starting at $400,000 and going up with customizations. Panerai wants to pay tribute to their naval history and this piece is an homage to the significance of bell-tones aboard a vessel out at sea. The Panerai Radiomir 1940 Minute Repeater Carillon Tourbillon GMT watch also has the distinction of being the first-ever watch with two minute repeaters, and also features a tourbillon and a brand new new movement. They must also be keenly aware that it is a future-grail piece for Paneristis and collectors, and as a result they’re offering something unusual in haute horlogerie: flexibility. The watch is made to order and buyers will be able to customize things not only like the strap but hands and even the material the case is made of.
Breaking the mold by incorporating two minute repeaters for local time and a second time zone, the Panerai Radiomir 1940 Minute Repeater Carillon Tourbillon GMT employs three hammers to achieve a melody. Initiated via a push-piece at 8 o’clock, the repeater here packs three hammers rather than the traditional two, to allow a combination of tones with the lowest timbre indicating the hour while the highest and latter tones indicate the minutes. In traditional repeaters a triple chime usually indicates a fifteen minute passage but the Carillon utilizes a decimal repeater which chimes 10 minute increments. So, for example a traditional minute repeater would chime 10:28 as ten chimes for the hour, followed by one chime for 15 minutes, followed by 13 chimes for individual minutes. Here, 10:28 is 10 chimes for the hour, two triple chimes, and 8 individual chimes. Note that they decided to use “triple chimes” for the second chime indicating 10-minute sets.
The Luminor Marina, bestseller of the Officine Panerai collections, is presented for the first time in the completely new size of 42 mm in the latest Luminor Marina 1950 3 Days Automatic.
The new size of the Luminor 1950 case has not changed the classic proportions of this model faithfully inspired by the watches created by Panerai in the 1940s onward for the commandos of the Italian Navy. Like its period predecessors, the new Luminor Marina has the bridge with locking lever, which helps to ensure a high degree of water-resistance and also protects the winding crown from accidental shocks. The crown itself operates a convenient setting mechanism by which the hour hand is rotated in one-hour steps in either direction, also adjusting the date correspondingly, without interrupting the running of the watch.
Panerai’s most technically awe-inspiring watch at this year’s SIHH watch salon is easily the Panerai Luminor “Lo Scienziato” Luminor 1950 Tourbillon GMT Titanio (Ref. PAM00578), a limited-edition piece combining an ultra-light titanium case, skeletonized movement, GMT complication, and unconventional tourbillon. Here’s what you need to know about the Lo Scienziato.
It is inspired by one of history’s great Tuscan geniuses.
