Understanding the Panerai line-up of watches

Radiomir and Luminor. The names Radiomir and Luminor came from the luminescent material used on the hands and indices of the Panerai watches. Today, however, Radiomir refers to the squarer flatter case with wire lugs, while the Luminor refers to the heavy duty case with large lugs and the locking lever mechanism, which also comes in a variations like the 1950 case.

Panerai Radiomir

Panerai Luminor

The typical Radiomir case has a 45mm case diameter, although occasionally a larger 47mm case is released. The Luminor comes in 40mm, 45mm and occasionally in an even larger 47mm case diameter.

The Panerai catalog divides its watches into four categories: Historical, Contemporary, Manifaturra and Special Editions.

Historical. The Historical line-up of Panerai watches comprise a series of time-only watches with manual winding movements. Time-only watches are those that display at most hour, minutes and seconds.

Examples: Luminor PAM 111; Radiomir PAM 210 and Radiomir PAM 292.

Contemporary. The Contemporary line-up of watches comprise those Panerai models with additional functionality, from as simple as a date display to as complicated as a dual time watch or flyback chronograph. These watches are run by self-winding movements.

Examples: Luminor Submersible PAM 24, Luminor PAM 48, Luminor GMT PAM 88, Luminor PAM 104, Luminor PAM 240, Luminor Submersible PAM 243 and Luminor GMT PAM 297.

Manifaturra. The Manifaturra line-up of Panerai watches comprise those which have movements built by Panerai.

Examples: Luminor 8 Day GMT PAM 233, Radiomir 8 Day PAM 268, Luminor 10 Day GMT PAM 270, Luminor Tourbillon GMT PAM 306, Luminor GMT Chrono PAM 311, Radiomir Tourbillon GMT PAM 315 and Luminor GMT Chrono PAM 317.

Special Editions. The Special Edition are Panerai's limited edition watches. The Special Edition watches of Panerai are built only for a single calendar year and in small numbers.

Examples: Luminor Marina Left Handed PAM 26.

About Panerai. Officine Panerai was founded in 1860 in Florence, Italy by Giovani Panerai. Panerai was acquired over by Swiss watchmaker Richemont S. A. in 1997.