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Conan O'Brien Driving with Tom Cruise
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Sylvester Stallone Fall 1995
...Panerai Super-Coolness...
Sylvester Stallone
Fall 1995
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Panerai Mythbusters: Separating Fact From Fiction
PANERAI
Mythbusters
Separating Fact From Fiction
There has been a great deal of false information spread throughout the world regarding the history of Panerai. I have been working with Jose from Perezcope.com on separating the fact from the fiction, and over time I plan to update this story until it is complete.
How is it so much false information has been spread about vintage Panerai watch history? The answer is simple. The vintage Panerai watches began their life as a Classified Italian Military Secret. Many people and organizations have attempted to put together all the pieces of the Panerai history puzzle, and in doing so, with only about 50% of the pieces in place, they often guessed at what the missing pieces looked like.
While I understand this approach, my goal is to accurately add many of the missing puzzle pieces to complete a better picture. Over the next year or so, I intend to do a complete update on my story titled "The Complete History of Panerai—The World's First Professional Diving Watch." So this story will parallel that story.
Let's begin with a recent story, but first, allow me to introduce you to Jose from Perezcope.com. Jose was raised in Switzerland and in the photo below we see Jose on a recent trip to the U.S. Navy SEALAB Museum in Panama City, Florida.
Jose and I have been collaborating for some time now on both Rolex and Panerai history. The result of some of our collaboration are the two historical timeline poster seen below. Before I go into detail on the timeline poster I want to point out that Jose made and beautifully laid out the poster. I contributed with historical facts, and by consulting on how I insisted some of the layout elements were structured, as well as adding subject content to better contextualize the timeframes.
The first timeline poster below covers the History of The Rolex SEA-DWELLER. If you examine the poster closely you will see on the left side, vintage Panerai watches that affected the development of the Rolex Submariner and SEA-DWELLER.
The next photo below is titled, "The Panerai Time Machine." This magnificent timeframe poster charts the REAL history of Panerai vintage watches. I highly recomend right-mouse clicking on the poster above and below, and opening them in a new window so you can check out the incredible details.
Jose is what I refer to as a brilliant Horological Forensics Investigator. Jose and I often remind me of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, in the sense we have made so many discoveries together, but I have to say Jose is beyond brilliant.
The interesting thing about Jose is that he appeared from out of the wild-blue-yonder and started pointing out all kinds of bizarre inconsistencies regarding vintage Rolex watches. In doing so, he seems to have had a strong effect on the resale value of collectible Panerai watches. Jose was so effective in his attack on manipulated vintage Panerai watches, that for the past year or so, we don't see any of the auction houses offering them for fear he might attack and discredit them.
Orologgeria Svizzera
The Anonymous Panerai Dial Models Were Made in 1936 & 1938
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On a side note, the modern Panerai PAM00249 was introduced by Panerai in 2006 as a limited edition model that was limited to 1936 examples, of which I own and wear one. The PAM 249 is probably my favorite modern Panerai of all time. Panerai claimed the reason they called it the Radiomir 1936 was because it was a based upon a Panerai 3646 prototype made in 1936, which simply is not true. Rolex patented what is not referred to as the California Dial on June 15, 1942 so it couldn't be from 1936.
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The Radiomir 1940 Case
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Vintage Panerai 3646 for "Presentation" Purposes
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False Myth #1
Orologgeria Svizzera
was named Officine Panerai
The image seen below was originally published all over the web, including in my story titled, "The Complete History of Panerai." Jose from Perezcope.com discovered it had been falsely manipulated.
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Both photos are correct with the sign at the top of the image that says, "Orologeria", which means Watchmaking in Italian. Notice how in the upper image it says, "Officine Panerai" toward the bottom of the window? That is a fake sign and was the result of photo manipulation. In other words, in the 1920s, there was no such thing as Officine Panerai. The term Officine Panerai was first used by Panerai in 1955 when they sought to patent compasses and depth gauges. The correct photo, which was taken in the 1920s can be seen below:
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Giovanni Panerai is pictured below at a later date.
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Both photos are correct with the sign at the top of the image that says, "Orologeria", which means Watchmaking in Italian. Notice how in the upper image it says, "Officine Panerai" toward the bottom of the window? That is a fake sign and was the result of photo manipulation. In other words, in the 1920s, there was no such thing as Officine Panerai. The term Officine Panerai was first used by Panerai in 1955 when they sought to patent compasses and depth gauges. The correct photo, which was taken in the 1920s can be seen below:
Notice this correct photo, in the same place, says "Orologeria Svizzera" which is correct, and when translated into English means "Swiss Watchmaking." As a matter of fact, the image below shows Giovani Panerai standing in front of his first Orologeria shop around 1860. According to Panerai "Giovanni Panaerai's shop also served as a workshop and Florence's first watchmaking school. The shop later moved to its current location in the Palazzo Arcivescovile in Piazza San Giovanni, having also changed its name to "Orologeria Svizzera" at the beginning of the twentieth century." If you look closely at the image below, you will notice an Omega sign in the wider window about a foot above Giovanni's head. The Omega brand was made by a company named La Generale Watch Company, and was founded in 1848 in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland.
Giovanni Panerai is pictured below at a later date.
The photo below shows the Orologieria Svizzera shop around 1934, and notice there are now multiple brand name signs in the window including Vacheron & Constantin, as well as Longines, and ROLEX.
False Myth #2
The Anonymous Panerai Dial Models Were Made in 1936 & 1938
The second falsely perpetuated myth suggested the Anonymous Panerai dials were prototype dials made in 1936 and 1938. This is NOT true. They were both made in 1944, as seen in the illustration below:
Last week Panerai issued a press release saying the upcoming 2017 Panerai PAM00721 was based upon a vintage Panerai Reference 3646 that was made in the 1930s. This is simply NOT true. The watch in question, know was made in 1944.
An obvious question is how did this myth get perpetuated over the years? It turns out that there are several examples of Rolex made Reference 3646 models, with cases and movements from 1936 and 1938 that have these dials, but the watches did not originally come with these dials. Instead, they came with Type A dials, that were made out of riveted plastic, that easily lost their shape and were later replaced with anonymous dials as spare parts that were made in 1944. You can learn much more about this story and the truth about the Anonymous Panerai dials on Perezscope.
An obvious question is how did this myth get perpetuated over the years? It turns out that there are several examples of Rolex made Reference 3646 models, with cases and movements from 1936 and 1938 that have these dials, but the watches did not originally come with these dials. Instead, they came with Type A dials, that were made out of riveted plastic, that easily lost their shape and were later replaced with anonymous dials as spare parts that were made in 1944. You can learn much more about this story and the truth about the Anonymous Panerai dials on Perezscope.
On a side note, the modern Panerai PAM00249 was introduced by Panerai in 2006 as a limited edition model that was limited to 1936 examples, of which I own and wear one. The PAM 249 is probably my favorite modern Panerai of all time. Panerai claimed the reason they called it the Radiomir 1936 was because it was a based upon a Panerai 3646 prototype made in 1936, which simply is not true. Rolex patented what is not referred to as the California Dial on June 15, 1942 so it couldn't be from 1936.
The "California" Dial Nomenclature
Rolex Patent Application
June 15, 1942
Rolex applied for a patent for this dial on May 30, 1941, and the patent was granted on June 15, 1942, as seen in the patent application below. So where id the name, "California Dial" come from?
The patent application pictured above, when translated from French to English says:
The object of the present invention is a timepiece dial. This dial is characterized in that it comprises hourly signs constituted by Roman numerals and others by Arabic numerals.
The accompanying drawing shows, by way of example, four embodiments of the object of the present invention.
FIG. 1 is a plane of the first embodiment. Figs. 2, 3 and 4 are small-scale planes, the second, respectively the third and fourth embodiments.
The dial of FIG. 1 is a round dial with an hour circle with twelve signs, one for each hour. The signs for hours 10 and 11 and 1 and 2 are Roman numerals, those for hours 4 and 5 and 7 and 8 by Arabic numerals and those corresponding to noon, 6 o'clock, 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock, By simple geometrical elements, namely a triangle and three horizontal sticks.
It will be seen that this layout gives a clear and simple turn of the hours, easy to realize with luminous material and allowing an easy reading of the time especially for wristwatch boxes whose dials are relatively small. In fact, the fact that the Roman numerals occupy half the dial and the Arabic numerals the other, clearly distinguishes these two halves. In addition, the Roman numerals chosen are those which are the simplest to perform and the easiest to read.
In the other three embodiments, the hourly sign corresponding to time 5 is constituted by the corresponding Roman numeral and the hourly sign corresponding to 6 hours is constituted by a very short vertical line. In the embodiment of FIG. 2, the sign corresponding to noon is indicated by a vertical line, in that of fig. 3, by two vertical lines and, in that of FIG. 4, by a short stroke surmounted by a half-circumference. Of course, the aforementioned provisions could be applied to dials of a shape other than round and other arrangements would still be possible
CLAIM
The dial of the timepiece, characterized in that it comprises hourly signs co-located by Roman numerals and others by Arabic numerals.
SUB-CLAIMS:
1. Dial according to claim 1, characterized in that it comprises: In addition, time symbols constituted by triangular geometrical elements.
2. The dial as claimed in claim 1, wherein the symbols corresponding to the hours 10 and 11 and 1 and 2 are constituted by Roman numerals.
3. Dial according to claim 4, characterized in that the signs corresponding to Hours 4, 7 and 8 are Arabic signs.
4. Dial according to claims 1 to 3, characterized in that the corresponding 5-hour sign is the corresponding Roman numeral.
5. Dial according to claim 1, characterized in that the remaining digits are constituted by geometrical elements.
6. Dial according to claims 1 to 3, characterized in that the sign corresponding to 5 hours is constituted by the corresponding Arabic numeral.
7. Dial according to claim 6, characterized in that the remaining signs are constituted by the geometric elements.
MONTRES ROLEX S. A. Mandataire A. BUGNION, Genève.
1943 Swiss Magazine Ad
Rolex Bubbleback
The image below is from a Swiss magazine that was published in 1943 and it shows a beautiful Rolex Bubbleback with a classic California dial, with Lake Geneva shown in the background. This watch was a harbinger for the magnificent art-deco design language that would evolve a decade later into the Submariner and GMT-MASTER.
False Myth #3
The Radiomir 1940 Case
For years now, Panerai had mistakenly use the term "Panerai Radiomir 1940 - Watches Collection", as seen below to describe a case that was NEVER made until it was introduced in 1953. So these case simply did not exist in the 1940s. Why does Panerai use this false taxonomy? Your guess is as good as mine. For historical accuracy sake, this case really should be called Radiomir 1950 Case.
False Myth #4
Vintage Panerai 3646 for "Presentation" Purposes
Panerai introduced two new models from their 2017 Special Edition Watches, which are referenced as the PAM 00685, and the PAM 00687. Panerai claimed these models were based upon two Panerai Reference 3646 Type A models, that were produced in the late 1930s." Specifically, they said, “…one of the most sought-after historic Radiomir prototype watches supplied by Panerai in the late 1930s to the Royal Italian Navy”.
Panerai further claimed that these prototypes were made for presentation purposed from the late 1930s. If you look closely, these two new models have exhibition casebacks on the front of them, which makes zero sense. Also, the exhibition caseback is engraved with "OFFICINE PANERAI", which as mentioned earlier in this story was first used in the 1950s, NOT EVER used in the 1930s. You can read much, much more about this bizarre model on Perezcope.com.
For the record, the hands on these models are also historically incorrect, but I understand whey Panerai uses these hands as they look great in my opinion. I think the watches would look a zillion times better with a standard bezel on the front.
The Truth Behind The PAM 203
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Panerai claimed in a published press release that these very special models featured a historic "NOS" (New Old Stock) Angelus 240 movements which were "supposedly" found in the old stock of the original company. Jose, from Perezscope.com, was the first to discover the extreme discrepancy and puts forth rock-solid proof that this was not true.
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In the future, I plan to expand this section considerably, and as previously mentioned, I plan to also complete a major update on my story titled, "The Complete History of Panerai."
For the record, the hands on these models are also historically incorrect, but I understand whey Panerai uses these hands as they look great in my opinion. I think the watches would look a zillion times better with a standard bezel on the front.
False Myth #5
The Truth Behind The PAM 203
This is another bizarre case of mistaken identity. In 2005 Panerai introduced a special edition known as the PAM 203 which is seen below.
Panerai claimed in a published press release that these very special models featured a historic "NOS" (New Old Stock) Angelus 240 movements which were "supposedly" found in the old stock of the original company. Jose, from Perezscope.com, was the first to discover the extreme discrepancy and puts forth rock-solid proof that this was not true.
If you are wondering why I am writing this story, it is due to the fact that as a horological researcher and the worlds leading Rolex historian I want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. As Jose so accurately articulated recently, and I am paraphrasing. He said when Richemont's predecessor, the Vendome Group purchased the Panerai brand in 1997, not much was known about Panerai's history, but in the time since then, a lot more pieces of the puzzle have come together.
Jose and I are absolutely committed to getting as many of the historical facts as straight as possible. We also believe Panerai deserves to get its fact straight, and at least be aware of the fact they have made some historical blunders. Also, Jose and I agree that Panerai's true history is so amazing, it needs zero exaggeration.
In the future, I plan to significantly update my story titled "The Complete History Of Panerai: The World's First Professional Diving Watch." There is so much amazing previously undocumented vintage Panerai history, which Jose and I have discovered and plan to share in the future.
Jose and I are absolutely committed to getting as many of the historical facts as straight as possible. We also believe Panerai deserves to get its fact straight, and at least be aware of the fact they have made some historical blunders. Also, Jose and I agree that Panerai's true history is so amazing, it needs zero exaggeration.
In the future, I plan to significantly update my story titled "The Complete History Of Panerai: The World's First Professional Diving Watch." There is so much amazing previously undocumented vintage Panerai history, which Jose and I have discovered and plan to share in the future.
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The Pontiff Apologizes To Panerai
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Joe Rogan & Sebastian Maniscalco Rockin' Panerai Luminor Models
Joe Rogan & Sebastian Maniscalco
Rockin' Panerai Luminor Models
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Phil Collins Luminor Panerai
...Panerai Coolness...
Phil Collins
Luminor Panerai
Phil Collins began his ultra-succesful career with the by being a part of the trio band named Genesis, and later went on to have an incredible solo career.
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