Switzerland Embraces Italy: Panerai - A Belle Alliance of Watchmaking History
A watch that unites Italianità with Swiss solidity and wrote watchmaking history - that comes very close indeed to a legend. The Panerai Mare Nostrum and the Luminor are the flagship watches of the Florentine manufacture, which has existed since 1860 and which brought legendary military and diving watches to market and in 1916 also launched the first watch with luminous hands. In 1860 Garibaldi forged the nation state of Italy – Giovanni Panerai opened his Orologeria Svizzera in historic Florence. The authentic premises can still be visited today. Thirty years later, following the takeover of the firm by his grandson Guido Panerai, the trade in Swiss watches was succeeded by the change of name to Officine Panerai. For decades the company distinguished itself in the production of precision mechanical instruments such as compasses, depth gauges, time fuses and calculating machines. From 1913 the principal customer for its nautical precision instruments was the Italian Navy, a business liaison that was to run like a golden thread through the company's later history. With inventions and patents in the fields of horology and optics, the course was set for the production of the first Officine Panerai watches in 1936. Yet more than 60 years were still to pass before the first public model ranges were presented. In the preceding decades Panerai produced above all for the combat divers and officers of the Italian Navy. That explains the choice of the large dial, on which every feature could be read perfectly even under water. The invention of the luminous substance “Radiomir” (containing radium) led to the navy-grade diver's wristwatch of the same name, which was at first strictly limited and produced under the utmost secrecy. Panerai enhanced a further development of the legendary Radiomir with a rotating bezel and supplied it to the Egyptian Navy in the 1950s. In 1980 this was surpassed once again with the development of a diver's watch in a titanium case, water-resistant to as much as 1,000 metres.
Panerai Goes Civilian
In the 1990s the watch producer finally moved into the development of watches and diving chronographs aimed at private clients as well, with the presentation of the model ranges “Luminor Base”, “Luminor Marina” and “Mare Nostrum”. Between 1938 and 1993 Panerai still fitted Rolex movements into its models. From the takeover by the Richemont Group in 1997, and carried along by the Panerai enthusiasm of its CEO Franco Cologni, in-house movements now beat in model ranges that were modelled on the Panerai classics. In the Manufattura line, for instance, which astonished with technical finesse and refinement. While in the 1990s the design and appearance, the oversized dial and the characteristic crown-protecting bridge were still felt to be unfamiliar by the taste of the day, Panerai watches soon attained cult status. Not least, the attention paid to them by film stars such as Sylvester Stallone furthered the value and the image of the brand. The Luminor Marina appeared in 1,000 freely available examples and was worn with pride on the wrist of Arnold Schwarzenegger in films such as “Eraser”. Panerai style and Panerai statement could not have been personified more authentically.
Buying Luxury Watches Online? Not Without My Panerai!
Because the company produced models well into the 1990s that were largely unknown to the wider public, the rare examples from that period have multiplied in value today. Traded mainly through auctions, their potential for appreciation is enormous, and that applies to current Panerai models as well. Might it also be down to the fact that a certain gleam flashes in the eye at the sight of them? Even without a name on the dial, a Panerai is instantly recognisable by its characterful face, and not only to connoisseurs. A watch like a piece of bedrock, this Panerai.
Ticking Masculine Beauties
At the Geneva watch fair Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie 2015, Officine Panerai presented its novelty “Luminor 1950 3 Days Flyback Automatic Ceramica”. A chronograph, a masterpiece that succinctly embodied the brand's credo of “innovation, exclusivity, perfection”. Its profile: case in synthetic ceramic and zirconium oxide, size 44 mm. Low weight. Harder than steel. Corrosion-resistant, scratch-resistant, temperature-resistant, water-resistant. The production of the black ceramic passes through a great many complex forming and machining steps until absolute consistency is achieved in a firing process of up to 1,000 degrees. The matt, pleasant and skin-friendly surface is achieved by efficient glass-bead blasting. Strong leather straps in tobacco to chocolate brown take up the colours of the hands and underline the virile appearance of the Panerai luxury wristwatch. By means of the “flyback function” of the chronograph, the functions “stop”, “reset to zero” and “start” are carried out in a single operation. The new calibre P.9100, with its 302 individual components, is made by the brand's own manufacture in Neuchâtel. The dial is structured by a blue chronograph seconds hand, a central coated minute hand and a date display positioned at 3 o'clock. Through a viewing window in the screwed-down case back, the busily working movement reveals itself. A singular achievement, this Panerai Luminor modelled on the flagship of the 1930s. On the same occasion the maritime-elegant Mare Nostrum Titanio – the luxury watch of the officers of the Royal Italian Navy – made its sensational debut. Unlike its historical steel predecessor it is made of titanium, its diameter of 52 mm may be called impressive, and its movement calls for hand winding. Like the Luminor, it appears in just 150 individual pieces.
