As we will see at Watches & Wonders, Panerai’s codified 1940s line is now home to two marvelous contemporaries demonstrating fusion between the house’s traditional military heritage and modern watchmaking expertise. First, let’s remember that the Radiomir 1940 was a timekeeper that bridged the binary between the traditional cushion case of the first Radiomir (1936) and the imposing Luminor 1950 case, fitted with the iconic crown protecting device. Its lugs were reinforced to meet the requirements of the Italian Navy, which sought to provide its commandos with a robust watch of great underwater performance.
The new timekeeper arrives in two permutations: the Panerai Radiomir 1940 3 Days Acciaio PAM00574 and the Panerai Radiomir 1940 3 Days Oro Rosso PAM00575. Measuring 42mm in diameter, both of which play host to the new in-house movement, the manually wound P.1000. Entirely executed by Panerai, the tidy calibre features a remarkable power reserve of 3 days and a seconds reset. When the winding crown is pulled out, the balance wheel stops and the seconds hand, rotating in the classic subsidiary dial at 9 o’clock, is reset to zero, allowing the watch to be synchronised exactly with the reference time signal.
The case is water-resistant to 10 bar (a depth of about 100 metres) in the polished AISI 316L stainless steel version and to 5 bar (about 50 metres) in the gold version. The latter is made of 5NPT red gold, the special gold alloy which has a high percentage of copper, as well as a small amount of platinum which helps to prevent the precious metal oxidising.
In the steel model, the alligator strap is coordinated with the lime green of the Super-LumiNova whilst the red gold model is supplied with a black alligator strap.
Filed under: Style & Accessories, The Millenary Post, Watches Tagged: 2015, Panerai
