About Panerai Company

Panerai Wristwatches have always had legendary status. The special relationship shared with Rolex and the Italian Navy has elevated Panerai watches to a mythical level.

Giovanni Panerai (1825-1897), founder of the family business, opens the first watchmaker's shop in Florence in 1860 on the Ponte alle Grazie and establishes contact with the most prestigious and longest established Swiss watch manufacturers.

The company produced precision instruments for use by the Italian Navy, migrating to watches made specifically for these Navy Commandos as early as the 1930's. During WWII, they supplied watches, compasses, torches and depth gauges to the Italin Navy marine commandoes. There were 2 versions of the watches, the Radiomir Panerai which used radium and the later Luminor Panerai which used trituim.

Up until the end of the 80's Panerai produced watches exclusively for the Italian army. These watches were, at that time, subject to the Italian Military Secrets Act. Only since 1993 have they been available to the general public.

In 1993, Panerai issued re-editions of the Luminor model and started producing the Mare Nostrum chronograph. Both were in a limited edition of only a hundred pieces for each version. These are now selling for more than 200% of the original list. After the Vendome Group accquired Panerai in 1997, they re-started the regular production lines. The Luminor and Mare Nostrum models were produced in unlimited numbers and other complicated models were added. Another limited edition was unveiled, the platinium Luminor with the original Rolex movement. Only 60 pcs. of those wil be produced. The estimated output of Panerai watches in 1998 is about 6,400 pieces for world-wide consumption. All in the current range are tested water-resistant to 400 m, but Panerai only guarantees them to 300 m.

During the decades that followed the company registered numerous patents for inventions in the areas of watchmaking and optical equipment.To this day Panerai watches continue to meet the high technical requirements of the marine forces.