PANERAI - Down sizing
The popular Italian watch brand will introduce a 42-millimetre Radiomir in January 2010.
26th October 2009
Kristian Haagen
Officine Panerai is still holding their position as one of the most popular watch brands in a stressed market. When the watch brand introduced their 44 millimetre Luminors in 1997, the watch market had not yet embraced oversized watches. But Panerai changed all that.
Even though other watch brands claim to be a ”man’s watch”, only few other actually were meant for the hairy male wrist, Panerai being one of these with their smallest size being 40 millimetre.
This new Radiomir is equiped with the P'999 exclusive movement © Officine Panerai
New Radiomir, new size
44, 45 and 47 millimetre seems to be the standard size of a Panerai, however the Florentine watch company will introduce a stunning 42-millimetre Radiomir in pink gold with a wonderful brown dial. The layout of the dial is still the classic one and represents another of the characteristic features of Panerai watches. The exceptional legibility in the dark is in fact achieved through a ‘sandwich’ structure with the luminescent material placed between two metal layers, the top one perforated in correspondence with the numerals and indexes.
Also luminescent and plated in pink gold, to complement the case, are the index-shaped hands and perpetually moving small seconds hand in the auxiliary dial at 9 o’clock. The watch, with wire lugs that are easy to remove when substituting the strap and water-proof up to a depth of 100 metres, features the classic screw-down, truncated-cone crown ensuring maximum water-tightness.
The Florentine brand chose to reduce the diametre to 42mm © Officine Panerai
New movement honoring the past
On top of that, Panerai will equip the new Radiomir with their latest inhouse movement, P’999. With a diameter of 12 lignes and a thickness of only 3.4 millimetres, the new hand-wound P.999 movement features 19 jewels, a 60-hour power reserve and a balance wheel oscillating at 21,600 alternations/hour.
Panerais very first watches were also equipped with manual movements. When the first prototype was produced in 1936, also Radiomir, it was equipped with a Rolex modified Cortebert movement. Later versions were equipped with an Angelus 8 Days movement. This new Radiomir, PAM336, is movement-wise a historic salute to the early days of the Florentine watch company. And a modern salute to the manufacteur position that Panerai proudly holds today.