Panerai Launches Three New Luminor 8 Days Power Reserve Models

Panerai‘s autumn rollout of new timepieces not seen at January’s SIHH watch salon (click here for our coverage of the new Radiomir 1940 editions) continues with the release of three new variations on the brand’s Luminor 8 Days model, two with newly designed power-reserve-indicator dials, the other the first in the series with a case designed for left-handed wearers.

Powered by the hand-wound P.5002 caliber, developed and manufactured in-house by Panerai at its manufacture in Neuchatel, Switzerland, the new Luminor 8 Days Power Reserve Acciaio (Ref. PAM00795) is housed in a 44-mm-diameter case made of 316L stainless steel (acciaio in Italian, the language of Panerai’s historical home of Florence) and features the multilayered “sandwich” dial that has become a brand hallmark, here in black with beige-tinted Super-LumiNova in the hands and Arabic numerals. As on previous models, the small seconds counter appears at 9 o’clock. What’s new about this timepiece is the power-reserve indicator placed unconventionally at 5 o’clock, with an arrow-tipped hand displaying the state of the movement’s 192-hour power reserve on a 0-to-8 scale representing the eight full days of running autonomy. (Previous versions have displayed the power reserve on a linear indicator above 6 o’clock.) The watch comes on a brown leather strap with beige stitching that echoes the look of the dial’s faux-aged luminous details. It retails for $6,700.

The Luminor 8 Days Power Reserve Titanio (PAM00797) features the same movement, functions, and case dimensions but in a case made of grade 5 titanium, which is 40 percent lighter than its steel counterpart, with a combination of brushed and polished finishes, and highly corrosion-resistant. Like the steel watch, its case is water resistant to 300 meters. The color scheme on the titanium model emphasizes shades of brown — light, with beige stitching, for the leather strap and dark, with beige Super-LumiNova numerals, hands, and indices, for the dial. This watch is priced at $7,100.

Rounding out the trilogy is the Luminor Left-Handed 8 Days Acciaio (PAM00796), also in steel and possessing a black sandwich dial $6,900 but whose 44mm case features the screw-down winding crown and its patented protection device shifted to the 9 o’clock position to accommodate left-handed wearers. (While watches designed specifically for lefties are still a relative rarity in the watch world — Tudor’s Pelagos LHD is one of the few that comes immediately to mind — Panerai started creating such pieces as early as the 1940s, originally intended for Italian Navy divers who needed their left wrists free to other instruments such as compasses and depth gauges.)

The movement in this model, the manual-wound Caliber P.5001, differs slightly from the P.5002 only in the incorporation of its eight-day power-reserve indicator directly on the movement’s back side rather than on the dial. Visible through a sapphire caseback (the other two new models have solid casebacks), the movement also boasts a large balance wheel firmly fixed by a bridge with twin supports. This watch’s leather strap is in black, to match the dial, with bright blue highlights matching the “8 Days’ indication on the dial. The Luminor Left-Handed Acciaio carries a retail price of $6,900.

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