Fresh from the Showcase here at SwissWatchExpo. Today, we're going to talk about Panerais
and the differences between the Panerais. We're not going to get bogged down in the details of
the movements and all the little small things that people get mired into. We're going to take
a little bit of time to talk about the individual style of each one or what I like to call the
flavors of Panerai. And the reason I refer to them in terms of flavors, because of all the different
colors that they'd come in, and a lot of the fun, different ways that the straps can be configured,
especially like this green one here, this Radiomir with this bright green strap
that brings out the green luminescence in the Radiomir dial. There's a couple of different ways
that you can identify Panerai. And a lot of people get really confused between what is a Luminor?
What is a Radiomir? Why do they have a Radiomir and a Radiomir 1940? Why do they have a Luminor
and a Luminor 1950? And it goes on like that. And over the years, it can be very confusing,
but there's some very distinct differences because those different nomenclatures refer to when the
watch was actually invented and then reinvented along the way. So there's some very distinct
differences in the year patterns of those, especially in the Radiomir. So the very first
portion of the Radiomir was distinct because of the way that it had a specialized crown,
that a lot of people refer to as an onion crown, or kind of, it looked like a little tornado,
the way that it was convicts in the way that it was shaped, it started out wide at the end.
And then when it went to a point towards the center, almost looked like a little tornado.
When the watch is sitting on its side, I don't like the term onion crown. So I'm going to avoid
that as much as possible. We don't have one of those here in our display right now, because I
want to talk about a couple of differences in just the overall stature of the Radiomir
and the Luminor. So we can kind of familiarize ourselves with them. These are the Radiomir 1940s.
The original Radiomir had a little wire that went from one side of the case to the other, and that's
how they attached in the fixed the strap. So when you see the Radiomir original with the wire lug,
then you will know that's just the original Radiomir. And so
that Radiomir sort of appeared around the 1938 to 30 time period. It really
started coming into its own for the Italian Navy around the early 1940s.
Now you say, well, but there's a Radiomir 1940. Well true. So that watch originally
was around for about four or five years, the Italian Navy. And then they moved on to this
style that we have here in the Radiomir 1940s model. So this was the most predominant model
throughout the 1940s period, before they got to the Luminors. Now, the interesting thing about
these particular watches and the reason I like both of these, I'm going to tell you, so the,
this particular one with the green is a zero zero five seven four. Now that can be confusing.
And the number set and pattern, and a lot of people refer to these watches and they think
I don't have a clue what the number is that goes with the style of the watch that I'm
looking at. Well, don't be confused. Everybody does this. This is you're not alone in this only
the very most attentive Paneristi would be paying attention to those numbers.
So, although they're important, if you don't remember which one they are,
it's not a big deal. The rest of us don't either we have to cheat and refer to the,
either of the box. These boxes came with a Brown outer box with some stickers on them.
And those stickers truly identify the watch. If you're lucky enough, you'll get one with the
booklets. And the booklets will have a little sticker on the inside to detailing which model
that you have. And if all else fails, you can call Panerai and they'll tell you which model you have
or which model that you like. There's some books out there that are pretty good. And there's
some sources on the internet that are really good about helping you define just exactly which model
that you like, or which model that you want. Now, most likely you've seen these Radiomirs.
These are the smaller models. They tend to be manuals because all of the original Radiomirs
in the early days were manuals. They're thinner. Now, of course, the original pieces were much
bigger than these. The original Radiomirs were in the 50 millimeter size and they even had
60 millimeter size, which is kind of insane when you think about it, but they needed to see these
things under water. So they also come with this really bright luminescence on the dial. And the
dial is the most important thing to a Panerai why this watch that I'm holding in my right hand,
this green dial, or I'm sorry, this green strap has what is called a sandwich dial.
What that means is that there's an underlayer of dial, which is painted with that luminescence
color. Now in the early days, it was, they used radium. So that's why this is called a Radiomir.
The radium of luminescence of the dial gave this the name. So that's why it's called this with this
particular style. In this particular case pattern, this watch has a top layer with the numbers that
are carved out of another disc. That's laid on top of the original dial layer. So you have
a sandwich dial because you have two that are put together with the paint in the middle.
So the watch has glow super-intense along with the hands and they go all night long.
This is made from Super-LumiNova. Now they don't use the radium anymore. They haven't
for many years. So you don't have to worry about those types of things in these watches.
Now they do have the manufacturer caliber movement in them and they are manual whined.
So they're very well decorated. They're beautiful. These happened to have the open case back,
typically, not always, but typically with Luminors and with Panerai Radiomirs, you will find that the
manual wines in house caliber and the automatic manufacturer caliber will be displayed through
the case back, but that's not always true because they do come with in the early days,
not now that in the early days they were non manufactured caliber that were highly modified.
In fact, they were a, what I refer to as a unit toss, you may pronounce a different uni
T a S movement, which was an ETA based movement. So they were thicker and the watches would have
to be thicker for that reason. Panerai came up with their own in house manufacturer caliber so
that they could make them thinner like these. Now I'm going to move on from this particular piece.
And I'm going to go to the gold. This one for the gold piece is the zero zero five one
three. So this is a Rose gold piece. These two are very, very similar. Both of them are also
manual wines. This particular watch also has what is called the sandwich dial. So these are very,
very similar. You have the steel and the Rose gold, significant price differences. This one
happens to be in the $6,000 arena. This one happens to be in the $15,000 arena. There's
a lot of gold in this piece. It's absolutely gorgeous. It also has the case back where
you can see the manufacturer caliber as well. Not just pull that out so I can display that
To you.
We're going to do something fun here in just a minute. And when we move on to the Luminor,
I want you to be able to see just how these watches glow. And I think we can capture
this on camera. At least I'm hoping we can. So these are smaller pieces. If you don't think
that you want to have the largest of the group of the Panerai, for example, like the Luminor,
you don't have to worry about this particular crown, because it's closer to the body of the
watch. That's one of the things that they changed. They're all screw down crowns,
obviously, because they're diving watches. Now we're going to move on the Radiomir here just
for a second, because these get fairly confusing fairly quickly. When you talk about the original
Radiomir, you talk about a watch that has a crown protector for the I'm sorry for the Luminor.
I'll just take the Luminor, has the crown guard on the outside, and it's got a cantilever latch.
And the purpose of this invention for this is to keep this winding screw down against the,
of the watch that you would know then was positively water resistant in the early days. As
you might imagine with the Radiomir, you couldn't quickly identify whether that crown guard over
that crown was screwed down. There was no crown guard. So at that point, you may drown the watch
also because it was sticking out on the side of the case. You may damage the crown.
So these watches were work horses, they weren't for fashion or style or design, although they
later were even within the Italian Navy, because they became a sign of sort of what rank you were
throughout the, the time period, which watch you had kind of determined some higher styles.
So, that's why they got a little bit more decorative throughout time. Now,
with this particular watching the crown garden, the candle lever here, it's going to be a lot
of people say, well, it's a little bit harder to wind. Well, this watch that I have in my hand is
actually a painted dial. And it is a manual wind, just like the two Radiomirs here. So this Luminor
does not have the open case back so that you can see the movement. And that's because this is not
a pan or a manufactured caliber. This is the unit toss movie that I was speaking about earlier.
This is a 48 hour power reserve, and it will do every bit of it. I have a few myself. So,
it will do every bit of that time. One of the things that you should note, and I'm going to grab
my flashlight here, because I think we might be able to capture just how bright this dial is.
Once it's charged.
I think even in there, you can see just how bright that watch is that glows like that
for a really long time. And a lot of people don't realize that all of the watches do no
matter whether it has a sandwich style or not. This one happens to be a painted dial.
So these are the reasons that people really like these watches. Now the manual wind happens to be
just a little bit lighter than the automatics I happen to. Like it,
it's a little bit thinner. These are my favorite styles. This happens to be a logo dial, which
means it has the OPI or the office scene. Panerai the official Panerai logo on the front of it.
And it's just down here at the base near the six. So if you hear the logo,
that's exactly what they're referring to. Now, remember each one of these watches has
the ability to have the strap changed out. And when you buy these watches, especially from us,
we try to get them with all their original tools. That's not always easy. These tools get lost.
They get taken folks that have Panerais may not put them in the box when they go to sell them.
We do a really good job here of trying to get every single thing that comes with the original
watch, because you may want to change that strap out, but don't worry because even if you don't get
all the original tools with the watch, you can get them from Panerai. They do sell them. Now,
this particular watch is interesting because
this watches an automatic and this one has the inside magnifying glass.
So in other words, instead of like a Rolex where it has the Cyclops on the outside,
this one's underneath the glass and you can actually see the date a lot better
because you don't have these weird angles at which you need to look at the date to see it.
The Cyclops being reversed underneath the crystal makes it easier to see the date. At least in
my opinions, your opinion may vary. Now, this watch is interesting. It's also a painted dial,
but instead of having the stick markers, the hacks that were just the single lines for
each one of the hours, this one actually has the Arabic numerals. So not to be confused with Roman
numerals. So you have an actual written number for each one of the hours, the six and 12 being larger
than the rest of them. This one also happens to have the sub dial, of course, on the left side.
Those also vary some dials have them some dials. Don't not all watches have the magnifying glass
under their crystal. That's why there's so many different Panner eyes along the way, but this
watch is really great. This one also is an automatic, but it does not have the open
case back. So you cannot see the movement. This was a modified ETA movement as well.
So throughout the years, you can see there's a lot of changes. These also come in sandwich dials,
by the way, the differences between the crown guards, the Luminor versus the Luminor 1950,
the 1950 has the patent. And then the trademark here on the actual crown guard, this one happens
to not have it. Don't get mired down in that detail because now even Panerai just refers
to this as just the Luminor. So basically you have a Luminor with, or without the crown guard,
with the patent and trademark on the side of it.
And it's actually stamped into the crown guard. That's a matter of personal preference,
the ones that have the stamps in them, because that is their patent.
They are actually larger. They stick out just a little bit further and they're not quite as
smooth. They're there, they're more blocky. These are the one that is on this one is a little bit
more rounded. So when you see that you'll notice, Oh, wow, these don't look the same. That's why.
So they come in all of these different sizes, 42 millimeter, 44, 45, 46, and on and on.
So there's a lot to know about Panerai. If you need to have any questions answered about Panerai,
give us a call here at Swiss watch expo, email us. You can even leave a comments here
on the YouTube site subscribe, and we will get back to you with all the answers that we possibly
can for about the Panerai that can be confusing a little bit daunting, but that's what makes them,
in my opinion, more fun than all of the other so-called high desirable washes in the industry.
I'm a huge Panerai fan. So give us a call and we'll help you with find your best Panerai.