Panerai 1B t-dial

One of the nicer wrist watches that I have owned is the Panerai PAM00001. All the PAM1's in the A-series had a T-dial, the ones in the B-series did not. This particular watch is special in the sense that it is an early B-series watch (1999) - and that it is one of the few that did come with a T-dial (Tritium).

Panerai PAM00001 B-series t-dial (strap by Justin Chen)

The Tritium paint is quite thick and rounded and it has developed a nice patina over the years, but without showing any signs of deterioration or flaking. One of the things that I did not immediately like when I first came across this watch, was the white sub seconds hand. Its bright white color looked a bit out of place compared to the almost brownish tritium on the black hands. The sub seconds hand is made from plastic that hardly changes color over time. I got used to that real quickly and started to develop a serious appreciation of the watch.


Close up of the tritium dial clearly showing the white seconds hand.

The tritium paint of the numbers is much "fatter" than it is on for instance the dial of the earlier PAM00002. You can see this in the below photo of this Panerai 1B next to a Panerai 2A. I would have loved it if the numbers of the 2A were equally fat.


1B on the left, 2A on the right. Black strap by Dirk Grandry.

Although the B-series (1998/1999) of the PAM1 has a millesimation of 3,000 units, this does not mean that 3,000 1B's were produced. These 3,000 units were watches of the models 1,2,3,4,9 and 10. Only half of those were fitted with a Tritium dial. I've tried to find out how many 1BT's were produced, but I've never been able to get a definitive answer. Just that it were few, most likely no more than 150 to 250 pieces.


You can see that the hands are from the A-series

This 1BT also had the A-series hands. You can tell the difference between A-series and later hands by looking at the tip of the hands. The tritium goes up almost all the way to the end of the hands. Hands that were produced later in time don't have this.


t swiss t - close up

Apart from the last close up photo - which I took about a year ago - the ones in this post were the last I took before selling the watch to a collector in Asia.

Related posts

Overview of posts about Panerai watches
Two base Panerai watches - 11 years difference
PAM2A in a post about composition
PAM1BT in post about Kaktus Cujo strap

All photos © 2009 M.Wilmsen