Panerai seduced both the higher and lower end of its audience at this year’s SIHH, with the the ultra-complicated L’Astronomo and Lo Scienziato at the upper echelon, and the consumer-friendly Logo models at the entry level. Somewhere in the middle — which, let’s face it, is where most Paneristi reside — the brand also continued to expand its Luminor Due collection, first launched in 2016 as a thinner-cased alternative to the flagship Luminor. This week’s Watch to Watch, the Panerai Luminor Due 3 Days GMT Power Reserve Automatic Acciaio – 45 mm, features a new anthracite dial and a new GMT complication.
The watch’s 45-mm case is made of 316L stainless steel and carries on the Luminor Due tradition of relative slenderness, at just 13.4 mm thick. Despite its somewhat pedestrian water resistance of 30 meters, the case features the patented locking bridge device to protect the crown, which Panerai initially developed to keep water from seeping into the case during the underwater missions of the Luminor’s original end consumers, the military divers of the Italian navy. The dial has a satiné soleil finish and is constructed in Panerai’s familiar sandwich style, with two superimposed disks containing a layer of beige Super-LumiNova that shines through the stencil-tupe numerals and indices. The 72-hour (three-day) power reserve is displayed by a small luminous hand on a semicircular scale at 5 o’clock, while the time in a second time zone is indicated by a central arrow-tipped GMT hand and an AM/PM indicator at 9 o’clock. The date appears in a window at 3 o’clock.
Visible through the sapphire exhibition caseback is the movement that powers all of these functions, Panerai’s self-winding Caliber P.4002, made in-house at the brand’s manufacture in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Among its notable features are its off-centered micro-rotor made of tungsten, a material chosen for its high specific weight; its two mainspring barrels storing the aforementioned three-day power reserve; the twin-supported bridge firmly stabilizing its balance, which oscillates at 28,800 vph; and the seconds reset mechanism that stops the balance and zeroes the seconds hand when the wearer adjusts the time, allowing for easy synchronization.
The Panerai Luminor Due 3 Days GMT Power Reserve Automatic Acciaio — call it by its reference number, PAM 0994, for less of a mouthful — comes on a robust brown alligator strap with beige contrast stitching and closes with a steel pin buckle. The most complicated model yet from the two-year-old Luminor Due collection, it is priced at $15,100.
