The Panerai 233 is, without a doubt, my favourite Panerai. The moment I first saw photographs of the watch after it’s release in 2006 I wanted one, and I finally bought mine in 2008. At the time it was the most expensive watch I’d ever bought and it wasn’t easy justifying the price to myself, but looking back I’m so pleased I did. Every time I wear this watch it puts a smile on my face.
But as well as being my personal favourite, the 233 is also an important watch in the history of Panerai because it was the first watch they ever produced with a movement designed and built completely in-house.
For those of you who know Panerai you can skip the next bit, but for those that don’t here is a potted history of Panerai:
- 1860 – Giovanni Panerai opens his first shop on Ponte alle Grazie in Florence, Italy, selling Swiss pocket watches to the public. The shop would later become the cities first watchmaking school.
- 1864 – The company “Guido Panerai & Figlio” was established by Giovanni’s grandson, Guido, to design, develop & produce high quality diving equipment. By the end of the nineteenth century Panerai were supplying the Royal Italian navy with precision instruments.
- 1915 – 1918. The Royal Italian Navy uses instruments supplied by Panerai during the First World War. The products included luminous devices for sighting naval guns at night, timing mechanisms, depth gauges and mechanical calculators to launch torpedoes from MAS, high speed motor torpedo boats.
- 1916 – Panerai files the patent for “Radiomir” – a luminous powder based on Radium (an element recently discovered by Marie Curie) that would, when painted on a watch dial and hands, allow the diving instruments made by Panerai to be read easily underwater.
- 1934 – Guido Panerai dies and his son Giuseppe and daughter Maria take over. Maria concerns herself with running the shop with Giuseppe overseeing the military equipment division. The following year Panerai design and manufacture a series of underwater instruments for the commandos and divers of the Italian navy.
- 1936 – the first Radiomir prototype watch is made, which after some slight modifications (concerned mainly with the dial) goes into production in 1938. The watches were actually produced by Rolex for Panerai, but using dials made by Panerai. They comprised of a 47mm Rolex Oyster pocket watch case housing a Cortebert manual wind movement. The Oyster case had steel wire lugs soldered on to it at 12 o’clock and 6 o’clock so a strap could be used to allow the watch to be worn on the wrist.
- 1940 – the Radiomirs characteristic wire lugs are changed due to more stringent requirements from the Italian Navy. The lugs are re-inforced and built from the same block of steel as the case.
- 1950 – the “Luminor” watch replaces the Radiomir. The luminous compound is no longer Radium but Tritium, and the watch now has a crown-protecting bridge. This D-shaped crown protector remains a major feature of all Panerai Luminor to this day.
- 1954 – the last 30 Rolex cased Panerai watches are produced. From this time onwards Panerai continued to produce watches for naval use, but they were no longer made by Rolex.
- 1956 – Panerai apply for and are granted a patent in Italy for the device protecting the winding crown, which was introduced in 1950.
- 1972 – After Giuseppe Panerai’s death, engineer Dino Zei takes control of the company. He changes the company name from “G.Panerai & Figlio” to “Officine Panerai S.r.L”, and concentrates on making divers equipment – depth gauges, compasses & torches – which he continues to supply to the Italian navy.
- 1993 – Panerai decide for the first time to sell watches to the general public. In truth this was probably forced upon the company due to the fact that they were no longer supplying the Italian Navy (because it was no longer cost effective to do so). Three watches were produced in very small numbers for the civilian market – the Luminor, the Luminor Marina, and the Mare Nostrum
- 1997 – Panerai is sold to the Richemont Group (then the Vendome Group). Production of the watches is moved to Switzerland and a distribution network is set up in Italy. The following year the first Richemont Panerai watches go on sale
- 2002 – Panerai open the Panerai Manufacture in Neuchatel, Switzerland, and begin a project to design and build their first completely in-house watch movement.
- 2006 – the Panerai 233 is launched, a new watch powered by the first in-house Panerai movement – the 8 day manual wind calibre P.2002.
If anyone wants to read a little more about Panerai’s history and the relationship that exhisted with Rolex, this is a good read – http://rolexblog.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/part-3-complete-history-of-rolex.html
The calibre P.2002 keeps close ties to the historical characteristics of the first Panerai watches, being a manual wind movement with an 8 day power reserve. In addition to simply telling the time however it has a date, a GMT function that works on a 12 hour scale with a day / night indicator (the current 233 watches have an AM/ PM indicator on the sub-dial, but on the early watches there is a circle behind which a disc rotates to show whether day or night time), and a power reserve indicator. The power reserve is displayed by way of a horizontal slot in the dial above the “6” with a protruding “fang” showing how much of the 8 day power remains. Not everyone likes the fang, and in truth I don’t think it’s the most elegant way of displaying the power reserve, but I prefer it to an off-centre display such as seen on the PAM90. The 233 has a display back too, although I wonder if this is absolutely necessary as most of the movement is hidden behind bridges, plates etc. It winds smoothly, although nowhere near as smooth as the JLC movement in my 190.
I have to admit that I have always preferred the solid lugs of a Luminor to the wire lugs of a Radiomir. I’ve owned plenty of both over the years but I’ve always found the Luminor cases to be easier to wear, maybe because they seem more utilitarian to me. At 44mm diameter, the 233 is not a small watch, but the fact that it is a manual wind movement means it is not as tall as many large watches and is therefore better balanced on the wrist, and I find it very comfortable to wear. It retains the characteristic D-shaped crown guard that is one of the most distinctive features of a Panerai Luminor, but in a “1950” case with softer lines than the standard Luminor watches.
One of the features of this watch that I absolutely adore however is the high dome sapphire crystal. This is a feature that makes the watch particularly difficult to photograph, but gives the watch something of a classic look tipping its hat to vintage dive watches of years gone by. On a taller watch this could be something of an issue, but the shallow case of the 233 carries it well.
In short, the Panerai 233 is my ultimate Panerai. It has everything I need in a watch – a decent power reserve, a date, and a GMT function, all presented in an elegant case. Whilst there is no doubt that this is a truly modern watch, built in relatively large numbers in Switzerland by a large corporation, I feel it holds true to its heritage. It’s easy enough to get into a lengthy discussion about whether this is a “true” Panerai, and many traditionalists would argue that it has almost nothing in common with the early Luminor, but I feel that what Richemont did when they launched the 233 was to update Panerai itself. I’m not sure what Giovanni Panerai would make of it, but I for one love this watch.
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