Panerai Radiomir 1936 Mens Watch PAM00249 - Replica Watches

Faithfully recaptures the aesthetic lines of the prototype developed in response to the request made by the Royal Italian Navy in September 1935 for a luminous underwater watch for divers.

It was a turning point for Officine Panerai, which had specialised for many years in the manufacture of an impressive series of instruments with outstanding technical content, covered by the provisions of military secrecy: in addition to mechanical calculators for launching torpedoes and self-luminous devices for night gunnery, Officine Panerai made underwater compasses and mechanical depth gauges.

These were instruments which had to be of the very highest quality, in that they had to provide maximum reliability and accuracy during missions. The same constructional principles were applied to the watches. The prototype of March 1936 was followed by ten further examples, used in various exercises to test the effectiveness of its water-resistance and the perfect legibility of its time indication under all conditions of use. The most prominent of the innovations introduced by this 1936 model, which brilliantly passed all the tests it underwent, was the use of Radiomir, a special luminous paint consisting of zinc sulphide, radium bromide (the source of the name 'Radiomir') and mesothorium. The distinctive feature of the case, cushion-shaped in keeping with the style in vogue in the 1930s, is its large size, the diameter being 47 mm, while the black dial displayed an interesting combination of baton hour markers and Arabic and Roman numerals.

These unusual aesthetic details are repeated in the Radoimir 1936, a watch created in a limited series in steel (1936 units) and in platinum (99 units). Beneath the crystal made of Plexiglas, a material very similar to the Perspex plastic originally used by Panerai which has excellent transparency combined with great resistance to atmospheric agents and acids, the dial maintains the air of mystery of its famous predecessor; it carries no inscription, being anonymous as was the custom with products being tested by the special services. This avoided the risk of the manufacturer being identified and thus becoming vulnerable to possible actions of sabotage or spying if a watch should fall into enemy hands during wartime missions.