PAM320 Luminor Marina 1950 3 Days GMT

Another watch introduced by Officine Panerai at the 2009 Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH) is the Panerai PAM320. The watch shares the looks of the new PAM312, but it is powered by the new Panerai P.9001 in-house (Manifattura) movement. Like the P.9000, this is an automatic movement with a power reserve of three days, but the P.9001 has a power reserve indicator (at the backside) and it has a GMT function built-in.


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The silver second time zone hand rotates once every 12 hours. The GMT function of the PAM233 works the same way, but the PAM320 lacks an AM/PM indicator. Although you cannot tell if it is day or night in the second time zone, one will know that the 2nd time zone is ahead or not anyway - and in my opinion such an indicator is not a must-have. The absence of the AM/PM indicator certainly does make for a cleaner looking dial. The fact that the second time zone hands moves along with the hour hand makes it very easy and natural to tell the time in the other time zone. This GMT function is much better than the 24 hour GMT function of for instance the PAM88. It's also nice that you can hide the second time zone hand behind the hour hand when you don't need it. E.g. when you're not traveling. And there's no need for 24 hour markers on the dial either which again results in a much cleaner looking dial.

The PAM320 - like all wrist watches in the Manifattura line - has a 1950's style case and it comes with a beautiful brown crocodile strap. When I was taking the photos it struck me that the new Panerai OEM crocodile straps seem to be thicker and even nicer than the older OEM crocodile straps. There are of course many third party strap makers, but few of them can match the perfection and quality of the OEM croc straps. That doesn't mean that after market straps are no good. On the contrary, I have several after market croc straps that are absolutely fantastic. Most notably the ones that Simona Di Stefano sells. Ah! Good idea for another post ;)

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PAM312 Luminor 1950 Marina 3 Days Automatic
PAM305 Luminor 1950 Submersible

All photos © 2009 M.Wilmsen