Panerai’s Laboratorio di Idee, its innovative, high-tech R&D braintrust, has been quite busy in recent years, bringing avant-garde materials such as Carbotech, Goldtech, and Fibratech to the watch industry. The latest, and most precious, of these “tech” alloys makes its debut on the new Platinumtech Luminor Marina (PAM01116), an exclusive limited edition of 70 pieces.

The Platinumtech Luminor Marina is limited to 70 pieces.

Panerai ventures only rarely into platinum for its cases, and here the Florentine-heritage, Swiss-made brand does so with a modern twist. Like the Goldtech material that preceded it, Platinumtech is an alloy based on a noble metal that is then “reformulated in perfected,” according to Panerai, to enhance its physical properties, including hardness and resistance, while also making it much more difficult to finish and polish. The case, in the Luminor Marina collection’s hallmark cushion-shaped style, requires a painstaking manual process to achieve its delicate finish.
The sun-brushed olive green dial features details in beige Super-LumiNova.

The case, measuring 44 mm in diameter and 13.4 mm thick, uses the Platinumtech material for just about every element, from the bezel to the casebody, to the 12-sided screwed caseback, to the patented bridge device with its crown-locking lever. Under its domed sapphire crystal lies the olive-green “sandwich” dial, with its satiné soleil (sun-brushed) fin...