Panerai History
The history of Panerai dates back to 1860, established in Florence by a gentleman named Giovanni Panerai. Panerai was a fairly small watchmaker for many years until a breakthrough in 1890 saw it become an official supplier of precision mechanisms to the Royal Italian Navy.
As the company grew it was able to invest in research and development of new technologies. One such initiative involved experimenting with luminous materials to make Panerai instruments and dials brighter. In 1910, Panerai achieved luminescence by mixing zinc sulphide and radium bromide, which eventually gave rise to the name Radiomir.
This invention came just in time for the First World War, which saw the Royal Italian Navy use Panerai precision instruments widely for sighting naval guns at night, depth gauges, timing mechanisms and other products.
Around 1934, Panerai created the first Radiomir design of watches, which are famous today. Putting the designs to the test prior to World War II, in 1936 the Italian Navy requested that Panerai create a watch that can withstand extreme conditions. Panerai developed a successful prototype of its Radiomir watch line that is adopted for use by the Italian Navy.
The next major event in Panerai’s history came when it is granted a patent for Luminor in 1949, which is the luminous substance based on tritium that replaced the Radiomir mix that was created almost 40 years before. The Luminor watch design was born from this substance.
Between 1949 and 1993 there were no revolutionary events for Panerai, other than a name change in 1972 to Oficine Panerai following the death of Giusepe Panerai. In 1993, Panerai finally creates the Luminor, Luminor Marina and an edition of the Mare Nostrum chronograph for the civilian market.
A major publicity boost came in 1995 when a special edition called Slytech is created following a request from Sylvester Stallone, who is a big fan of Panerai watches. All Slytech watches have his signature engraved on the back.
The new publicity attracted attention and Panerai was bought out by Richemont, a Swiss luxury goods company that owns other big watch industry names such as Vacheron-Constantin, Cartier, Jaeger-LeCoultre, IWC and Piaget to name a few. Thanks to this acquisition, Panerai goes global with an international launch.
In 1998, the first ever Panerai automatic movement watches are revealed to the public:
* Luminor Submersible professional dive watch;
* Luminor GMT with dual time zones;
* Luminor Power Reserve with a power reserve indicator.
Since then, Panerai has rapidly established itself as a major player in the public luxury watch market. It now has two main product lines: Panerai and Ferrari.
The Panerai product line has four styles for its Radiomir and Luminor watches: Historic, Contemporary, Manifattura and Special Editions (each year, starting in 1997).
The Ferrari product line has three watch models: Granturismo, Scuderia and Special Editions (each year, starting in 2006).