The maritime brand answers market conditions with two new watches breaching its previous entry level price.

by James Buttery

Panerai has plenty to talk about at the moment with a new CEO, in the shape of former Roger Dubuis boss Jean Marc Pontroue, after 21 years of Angelo Bonati at the helm and, as a result, new watches are coming thick and fast.
The maritime brand is pushing hard on pricing, having broken its own entry-level price point three times in recent months, first with the £4,000 Luminor Base Logo 3 Days PAM630 (a contemporary manually wound Panerai which Chris Hall reviewed here) and now with a simultaneous brace of Radiomirs using the same in-house 21,600vph P.6000 movement used in that Luminor.

Firstly, the Black Seal Logo 3 Days Steel, above, brings that entry point down to £3,700 with its black dial and engraved and lume-filled numerals and small seconds at the nine o?clock position. I?ve never really understood Panerai’s Black Seal watches. While the term describes the appearance of the wetsuit-clad Italian Navy Frogmen of WW2, apart from the wording on the dial the watches themselves don?t seem to have any noticeable point of difference to set them apart from the rest of the collection. It’s a name awaiting a purpose.

More interesting is Radiomir Logo (PAM753), above, Panerai?s new most accessible watch, priced at £3,400. The design is pure unadulterated Radiomir; there?s not even a second hand to obstruct that lusciously simple dial...