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Radiomir Panerai

The 1936 Italian Navy frogman watch that invented the oversized dive case.
Panerai Leans Traditional with the Radiomir Officine PAM01385 SJX Watches
Panerai Leans Traditional Oct 27, 2023

Panerai Leans Traditional with the Radiomir Officine PAM01385

Pared back in style, this vintage-inspired limited edition from Panerai takes a simple approach in revisiting a historical design. With a faux-aged dial colour and conical crown, the Radiomir Officine PAM01385 celebrates the anniversary of the original Radiomir prototype of 1935. Priced well at just over US$5,000, it’s a limited edition with just 300 examples being made.  Initial thoughts  The execution of this is clean and will please those who appreciate historical Panerai design. There is nothing added on that doesn’t need to be there, and there are small details which play to those who know their Panerai history. It’s not an exact remake of a vintage model, but has a functional aesthetic that sticks to the spirit of the originals. As an aside, while I’ve never been a fan of mock ageing, the “tropical” dial is an even colour that doesn’t have a fake gradient to it, and so it can arguably be seen as a simple colour choice, rather than recreating faded pigment.  Another notable detail is the 45 mm case. Oversized by most standards, it’s actually more compact than the average historical Radiomir as well as modern-day remakes, which were usually 47 mm. This makes it more wearable, while still looking big enough to retain the Panerai feel. Given the historical background of this design, and the appealing, no-frills design, the price of US$5,400 is good value, particularly when compared against Panerai models like the Radiomir California. With just 300 piec...

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Panerai Turns to the Archives for the Radiomir Guido Panerai & Figlio PAM01346 SJX Watches
Panerai Turns Sep 28, 2023

Panerai Turns to the Archives for the Radiomir Guido Panerai & Figlio PAM01346

Panerai has just taken the covers off a reinterpretation of an intriguing and perhaps experimental variant of the Radiomir characterised by solid lugs. Christened the Radiomir Guido Panerai & Figlio PAM01346, this one-off watch has a platinum case houses an eight-day Angelus SF 240 movement from 1961. It’s set to be sold at Phillips’ Geneva watch auction on November 3 with all proceeds, including the buyer’s premium, going to UNESCO’s marine conservation body, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC-UNESCO). Initial thoughts It’s frequently true that when a brand decides to tweak its heritage, the result is rarely a standing ovation or zero criticism. The challenge usually arises from the conservative perspective of passionate purists who hold history as gospel, making it difficult to accept changes to a historical concept. Indeed, the one-of-a-kind Radiomir PAM01346 is a prime example of this delicate balancing act. It takes inspiration from the solid-lug Radiomir ref. 3646 – occasionally known as a “transitional Radiomir” though it was more experimental than transitional – and while the PAM01346 may not replicate the original entirely, it truly stands out as a contemporary reinterpretation that captures many key elements of the original, including the meticulously restored, period-correct Angelus movement. Regardless of one’s perspective, the PAM01346 is undeniably a homage to an obscure but significant model in Panerai’s history, despit...

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Panerai Introduces their First Annual Calendar as Part of the Radiomir Collection Worn & Wound
Panerai Introduces their First Annual Apr 7, 2023

Panerai Introduces their First Annual Calendar as Part of the Radiomir Collection

Among the new releases from Panerai at this year’s Watches & Wonders, we find what amounts to a first from the brand: a pair of annual calendars. While Panerai has dabbled in perpetual calendars, the annual calendar compilation is a new venture. This has always felt like an under-appreciated complication to me in an environment where perpetual calendars tend to get all the plaudits. For the relatively minor inconvenience of having to make a manual adjustment to the calendar on the first day of March, you get a calendar complication that’s very nearly “set it and forget it” at what often amounts to a significant discount over comparable perpetuals. While these new Panerais aren’t exactly rubbing up against the value end of the spectrum (they are both well into the five figures, with cases in precious metals), they do represent something genuinely new in the Panerai catalog, which is always going to be of interest to the brand’s dedicated base of collectors.  The new annual calendars are both found in the Radiomir collection, which is Panerai’s sleeker case design (compared to the Luminor) with vintage style wire lugs and a squared off cushion case shape. Gold and platinum options are available (Panerai refers to their alloys as “Goldtech” and “Platinumtech”) and the cases measure 45mm in diameter. Panerai enthusiasts and collectors will tell you that a 45mm Radiomir case wears quite a bit smaller than the numbers would indicate, because thanks to the ...

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VIDEO: Panerai’s Watches and Wonders 2023 novelties pay tribute to the rich heritage of the Radiomir Revolution
Panerai s Watches Mar 29, 2023

VIDEO: Panerai’s Watches and Wonders 2023 novelties pay tribute to the rich heritage of the Radiomir

This year, Panerai shines the spotlight on the historic Radiomir, which is one of four major Panerai collections alongside the Luminor, Luminor Due and Submersible. In this video, Panerai CEO Jean-Marc Pontroué presents new novelties like the Panerai Radiomir Annual Calendar, Radiomir California, Radiomir Otto Giorni and Radiomir Quaranta Goldtech to Revolution’s Editor-at-Large Eleonor Picciotto […]

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Panerai Revives the Radiomir California SJX Watches
Panerai Revives Mar 27, 2023

Panerai Revives the Radiomir California

Perhaps the most distinctive of all Radiomir designs, the “California” was nonetheless absent from Panerai’s catalogue for some time. Now it makes a comeback as the Radiomir California PAM01349. Essentially a cooler (and more expensive) version of the new Radiomir “Otto Giorni”, the PAM01349 preserves the signature features of the design, including the dial and blue hands, but works in a few concessions to modern tastes, including a smoked green finish for the dial as a scaled-down, 45 mm case. Initial thoughts The California has long been my favourite Radiomir so I am glad it is making a comeback. While it looks slightly vintage, the PAM01349 is clearly not a vintage reissue, which is a good thing. The combination of a green dial and aged case is an appealing one. However, the PAM01349 costs about 20% more than the Radiomir models with the same movement, a premium that isn’t grounded in any tangible features and thus hard to justify. Romans and Arabics The dial is classic “California” with Roman numerals on its top half and Arabic numbers on the lower half. Originally designed for legibility so each half of the dial is easily distinguishable from the other, the California dial was synonymous with the Radiomir. The PAM01349 preserves the original design, but the texture and colour are contemporary. Like most other recent releases, the dial has a grained surface and smoked finish, both in keeping with current tastes. The dial treatment gives the watch a vin...

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Panerai Introduces the Radiomir PAM01347 and PAM01348 “Otto Giorni” SJX Watches
Panerai Introduces Mar 27, 2023

Panerai Introduces the Radiomir PAM01347 and PAM01348 “Otto Giorni”

With a distinctive style inspired by historical military dive watches, Panerai has pivoted to a more contemporary aesthetic in recent years. This year the brand is once again looking back into its history with the Radiomir “Otto Giorni” PAM01347 and PAM01348. Both models are modelled on historical designs but executed in modern colours and finishes. Initial thoughts  Both watches are essentially facelifted versions of the Radiomir 8 Days PAM00992, sharing the same dial layout and in-house manual movement. While the PAM00992 was historically inspired (though not a remake of any one model), the newly launched pair is clearly more modern. The two watches are clearly targeted at someone who likes the Panerai style, but wants something more current in terms of colours and textures. With that in mind, the PAM01347 and PAM01348 are sensible and successful new launches. Both watches use recycled steel for the case, but more notable is the “aged” case finish that goes well with the textured, smoked dial. Otto Giorni Like most Radiomir models, the PAM01347 and PAM01348 are rooted in the dive watch developed by Panerai (and produced by Rolex) in 1935 for the Italian navy. With its distinctive cushion case and wire lugs (recognisable as a Rolex pocket watch with additional, soldered lugs), the Radiomir is one of Panerai’s signature models alongside the Luminor. While the historical Radiomir was a massive 47 mm in diameter, more recent Radiomir models are 45 mm,  as is th...

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Panerai Introduces the Radiomir Paneristi 45mm PAM02020 SJX Watches
Panerai Introduces Oct 19, 2020

Panerai Introduces the Radiomir Paneristi 45mm PAM02020

As it did for several anniversaries before – but against a vastly different landscape in the past – Panerai has just announced the Radiomir Paneristi 45mm PAM02020 for the 20th anniversary of its collector forum. The PAM 2020 is a hand-wind, 45 mm Radiomir with a steel case finished with an faux-patina treatment, and an inappropriately large anniversary logo on the front (and an even larger one on the back). Initial thoughts This is the sixth Paneristi edition. Six editions ago, Paneristi was arguably the most fanatical watch forum dedicated to the hottest brand in the world. The first Paneristi edition, the PAM 195 of 2003, sold out in an instant, and despite all of them having the owner’s name engraved on the back, sold for many multiples of the original retail price on the secondary market. But times have changed. Although Panerai describes the new Paneristi Radiomir as “the result of an intense creative process involving close collaboration between… Panerai’s technical and creative team… and the Paneristi”, it is neither intense nor creative. The emblem on the dial might be engraved like it is on vintage Panerai, but it looks unattractive. And “Venti”, which is Italian for “twenty”, between the lugs regrettably brings to mind the extra-large Starbucks coffee. The dial colour and finish does look good, however, and the faux-aged case (identical to that on the Radiomir PAM 992) is also appealing. And for €6,500 this is reasonably priced, though...

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Panerai Introduces the Radiomir California PAM 931 & Radiomir 8 Days PAM 992 SJX Watches
Panerai Introduces Nov 19, 2019

Panerai Introduces the Radiomir California PAM 931 & Radiomir 8 Days PAM 992

Panerai’s new launches this year have so far been inclined towards civilian sports – including the Luna Rossa trio and Mike Horn edition – which is a key part of chief executive Jean-Marc Pontroué’s strategy that also emphasises “experiences”. But with its two new launches – the Radiomir California 47mm (PAM 931) and Radiomir 8 Days 45mm (PAM 992) – the brand returns to the old school Marina Militare style – both have a familiar look that’s heavily inspired by wristwatches Panerai made for frogmen of the Italian navy in the 1930s and 1940s. Radiomir California 47mm PAM00931 Notably, both watches have steel cases with an “aged patina effect”, essentially a surface coating that reproduces the look of the vintage originals. The Radiomir California 47mm (PAM00931) revisits a design that Panerai has reproduced several times in the past – modelled on the ref. 3646 of the 1930s – but now with a “tropical” dial in graduated brown that mimics the look of aged dials on vintage Radiomir watches. It has Roman numerals on the upper half and Arabic numbers on the bottom, a design originally meant to aid legibility by clearly distinguishing the upper and lower halves of the dial. The crystal is domed PlexiGlas, while the movement is the extra-large, hand-wound P.3000 with a three-day power reserve. The second model is slightly more interesting, since the design is more novel (in other words having not been done before, at least in the exact same con...

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VIDEO: We polled people about the Panerai Luminor vs the Radiomir and the results are in Time+Tide
Panerai Luminor vs Mar 9, 2018

VIDEO: We polled people about the Panerai Luminor vs the Radiomir and the results are in

Well, at the end of a week that has focused on Panerai watches, the votes are in. In a recent Instagram poll, 66 per cent of you said that the Luminor is their preferred collection. About the same split could be seen in the comments on various posts. There’s little mystery as to why it … ContinuedThe post VIDEO: We polled people about the Panerai Luminor vs the Radiomir and the results are in appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.

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First Look – The New Panerai Luminor PAM01735 and Forged Titanium PAM01629 Monochrome
Panerai Luminor PAM01735 Apr 17, 2026

First Look – The New Panerai Luminor PAM01735 and Forged Titanium PAM01629

The Luminor is in the spotlight this year with several vintage-inspired novelties that celebrate Panerai’s legacy as a supplier of precision instruments to the Italian Navy. Following the first generation of combat diver’s watches in the mid-1930s, glowing with radium-based Radiomir, Panerai developed a less harmful luminous substance known as Luminor, which would eventually denote […]

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First Look – The New Aged Panerai Luminor 8 Giorni PAM01733 Brunito Monochrome
Panerai Luminor 8 Giorni PAM01733 Apr 15, 2026

First Look – The New Aged Panerai Luminor 8 Giorni PAM01733 Brunito

Long before the civilian world discovered the brand, Panerai was producing precision naval instruments for the Royal Italian Navy. A military secret until the early 1990s, Panerai’s work with the Italian Navy led to the development, in 1916, of a radium-based luminous compound patented by the brand as Radiomir. Following the first-generation Radiomir combat dive […]

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Rolex Hulk Review: The All-Green Submariner Teddy Baldassarre
Rolex Nov 6, 2025

Rolex Hulk Review: The All-Green Submariner

The Rolex “Hulk” Submariner is today one of the most collectible luxury sport watches on the secondary market, despite the fact that its green-on-green colorway was quite polarizing when it first hit retailers' shelves in 2010. The watch’s rise to legendary status, interestingly enough, followed a similar path to that of the Marvel character from which it derives its nickname. Here we explore the story of the Rolex “Hulk” and why it occupies a special chapter in the lore of iconic Rolex watches. Rolex Submariner Origins The Rolex Submariner famously arrived on the scene in 1953 but its roots reach much farther - to the historical, waterproof Oyster case that Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf introduced way back in 1926. Named for its pioneering structure -  which combined two threaded, hermetically sealed “shells” that clamped tight to keep water from penetrating, along with a crown that screwed securely into the side of the case - the case achieved a water resistance never before achieved in watches. The Rolex Oyster case made its debut on a watch of the same name (below), and its waterproof design was improved over subsequent decades. Rolex supplied a version of its Oyster case to the Florence-based firm Panerai in the 1930s and ‘40s for use on the Radiomir, one of the very first wristwatches purpose-built for underwater use, worn by Italian military divers.  Fast forward to the early 1950s, and the growing popularity of scuba diving as a recreational p...

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Tritium Watches: How They Work, And How They're Still Being Made Teddy Baldassarre
Oct 10, 2025

Tritium Watches: How They Work, And How They're Still Being Made

The need to read the time in the dark has been a challenge for the makers of timepieces for hundreds of years. The first solution was not a visual but an audible one: watches that could chime the current hour and minute on demand. These types of watches, aka minute repeaters and sonneries, are quite rare and expensive today and regarded as luxuries rather than the utilitarian inventions they initially were. In the 1900s, a more practical option presented itself: treating a watch’s dial with luminous paint that made its time display visible in darkness. And while this approach proved to be much more cost-effective and practical, it also brought a new set of challenges, as the earliest substances used on the dials were discovered to be unsafe, for the people who made the watches and, to a lesser extent, those who wore them. Let There Be Light The first material applied to watch dials for nighttime luminescence was radium paint, which, thanks to radium’s half-life of 1,600 years, offered a long-lasting glow during that period before dimming - the catch being that, as its name implies, radium (specifically Radium-226, which was used as the base of the “Radiomir” substance registered by Guido Panerai ) is radioactive. In the 1920s, the mostly female factory workers who painted the watch dials with radium compounds started falling ill and dying at alarming rates, leading to lawsuits against the companies that produced the material and eventually, safer working conditio...

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Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Teddy Baldassarre
Blancpain Jun 17, 2025

Blancpain Fifty Fathoms

[This feature article has been updated to incorporate the newest models – including the new 42mm and 38mm sizes – in the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms collection as of 2025. Prices listed are current as of this article's posting but subject to change.] Founded in 1735 in Villeret, Switzerland, Blancpain is the oldest luxury watchmaker in the world, full stop. The 287-year-old manufacture, now headquartered in Le Brassus in the Swiss Vallée de Joux, has an uninterrupted history of producing horological complications but its most iconic timepiece in this modern era began its life as a tool watch for military divers in the (relatively) recent year of 1953. The Blancpain Fifty Fathoms, however, is not just any tool watch; it’s recognized as one of the foundational examples of the modern dive watch, helping to establish a template that many others would follow. Today, it’s the foundation for a vast and versatile collection within the Blancpain portfolio - despite the fact that the watch almost didn’t make it out of the 1970s.  DIVING INTO HISTORY The quest to make a watch water-resistant enough for diving was already well underway when Jean-Jacques Fiechter, then-CEO of Blancpain, began working on the watch that would become the Fifty Fathoms. Rolex had developed the water-resistant Oyster case in 1926, which paved the way for watches such as Panerai’s Radiomir in 1936, which combined a waterproof case with a luminous dial for the underwater missions of the Italian n...

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First Look – The Green Panerai Luminor Marina Titanio PAM03325 (Incl. Video) Monochrome
Panerai Luminor Marina Titanio PAM03325 Apr 3, 2025

First Look – The Green Panerai Luminor Marina Titanio PAM03325 (Incl. Video)

Panerai’s history is well-known, of course, and although its watches are based on those supplied to the Royal Italian Navy for decades, it wasn’t until 1993 that they became commercially available. The collection is basically split between two lines: the Radiomir, designed to be worn by frogmen commandos, and the Luminor, easily recognized by its […]

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Introducing – The New Panerai Luminor Marina Collection In Steel Monochrome
Panerai Luminor Marina Collection Apr 1, 2025

Introducing – The New Panerai Luminor Marina Collection In Steel

Although the Florentine brand Panerai was founded in 1860, its contract with the Italian Royal Navy to produce precision instruments changed its destiny radically. Panerai’s 1916 radium-based powder, known as Radiomir, lit up the brand’s future as a supplier of luminescent instruments, underwater tools, and eventually watches for the Italian Royal Navy and its famous […]

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The Least Expensive Panerai Watches Teddy Baldassarre
Panerai Jan 8, 2025

The Least Expensive Panerai Watches

Panerai might be the most in-your-face example of the quintessential Tool Watch That Made Good as a Luxury Item. Unlike many other contenders for that title, a Panerai watch today looks essentially the same as it did back in the 1940s, when Italian navy frogmen wore them into underwater combat. Few concessions have been made to modern tastes and trends: the luminous material on the dials is no longer radioactive (inarguably a positive change), Rolex no longer makes the cases, and you no longer have to be a naval commando to own one, but otherwise the relatively few models that make up the Panerai family have stubbornly adhered to their military-issue origins. It is this adherence that makes Panerai, for many, an all-or-nothing proposition — either you’re in the brand’s worldwide, rabid coterie of fans and collectors, proudly self-dubbed the Paneristi, or you roll your eyes at the notion of ever owning one: they’re too big, too flashy, too clunky, too Stallone.  This article, the latest in our series of Price of Admission guides, is aimed at those aspiring to join the former group — in other words, those wishing to pull the trigger on their first Panerai but possibly intimidated by the breadth of choices — and, of course, by the ticket price for entry to that first tier of Paneristi-land. Without further ado, let’s find the most affordable Panerai watches in each of the current product families. RADIOMIR The Radiomir, first conceived in 1935 but tracing its m...

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