Episode 23 of the SJX Podcast looks at value propositions under US$10,000. It was a mixed year for affordable watches, but the highlights include Tudor, which continued to refine its sports watch formula with the well-received Ranger 36, and several micro-brands that made compelling cases for themselves with distinctive designs and upgraded movements.
Key releases from Christopher Ward, Albishorn, and Kollokium demonstrated there’s still room for creativity and innovation at accessible price points, even as some established players moved upmarket. The Grand Seiko UFA, which is priced just on the other side of the five-figure mark, is also compelling and may be worth a splurge.
The Panerai Luminor Perpetual Calendar GMT Platinumtech PAM01575 is one of the most unconventional perpetual calendars on the market, combining the brand’s military-inspired emphasis on legibility and robustness with a high-spec, crown-operated perpetual calendar movement designed for daily wear.
Housed in a hard-wearing 44 mm Platinumtech case and powered by the P.4100 calibre, the PAM01575 challenges expectations for what a Panerai can be, applying the brand’s utilitarian DNA to one of watchmaking’s most respected complications.
A user-friendly perpetual calendar
Panerai is a brand rooted in its identity as a supplier of watches and dive instruments to the Italian navy. The brand’s utilitarian aesthetic, with bold dial markings and a distinctive crown guard, earned it a cult following in the early 2000s, and while some of the enthusiasm of that era has waned, the designs remain as recognisable as ever.
Military watches are usually designed to be legible and robust, user-friendly traits that make them appealing to civilians. User-friendliness is something of a complication in its own right, and in some ways is one of the final frontiers of movement design. This includes both legibility, and the priority of information on the dial, and functionality, ensuring that the movement is easy to operate and resilient against mishandling.
These issues are especially present when it comes to perpetual calendars, which must present a lot of information; George Daniels famously urged his disciples to create designs that wouldn’t resemble gas meters. Traditional perpetual calendar mechanisms can also be damaged if adjusted at the wrong time.
Both topics have bedeviled watchmakers and perpetual calendar owners since the complication was first put into a watch by Thomas Mudge in the 17th century. Several brands have found solutions to these problems, but these innovators are mostly upstart haute horlogerie brands, not former military suppliers.
That makes Panerai’s perpetual all the more unusual, but it also makes sense. Panerai’s military-inspired look is all about legibility and robustness; the perpetual calendar complication offered a challenge on both fronts.
Pool-ready Platinumtech
Counterintuitive as it may seem, the PAM01575 is a platinum perpetual calendar designed for the rigours of daily wear. This encompasses not just the advanced functionality of the movement, but also the treatment of the 950 platinum case. On its own, platinum is not a hard metal, with a Vickers rating between about 130 and 210 Hv. That makes it about as prone to scratches as 18k gold, and softer than ordinary 316L stainless steel.
Platinumtech is a surface-hardening treatment that increases the Vickers rating by about 40% compared with untreated platinum. Surface treatments like this can make it difficult to polish and refinish the case, but the hard coating feels like the right trade-off for a rugged watch like the PAM01575. It’s also coherent with the overall theme, which is to make a perpetual calendar that fits the Panerai ethos.
The case is 44 mm and heavy; the Platinumtech case is 33% heavier than the equivalent case in gold. That said, the short lugs and wide strap result in a secure fit that reduces the perceived weight when wearing the watch. In addition to the patinated leather strap installed on the watch, the PAM01575 includes a rubber strap to allow owners to enjoy the 50 m water resistance rating. Panerai actually tests its watches in excess of the stated limit, which makes this PAM a pool-ready perpetual.
Beneath the surface
While the functional layout of the indications speaks to an effort at minimalism, Panerai has smartly dressed up the PAM01575 to hint at the complexity within and differentiate this ‘Perpetuo’ from an ordinary ‘Calendario’. This explains the blue sapphire crystal dial, which reveals the date disc and its eccentric counterpart for the day of the week.
The hands and dial furniture, including the day and date frames, are handsomely wrought, elevating the brand’s traditional motifs like the open six to a haute horlogerie standard of execution.
Perpetually Panerai
For a brand known primarily for its aesthetic, the PAM01575’s movement remains surprising four years after its 2021 debut. The P.4100 features several elements that distinguish it as one of the most interesting perpetual calendar designs on the market; it’s impressive enough to assume that its development benefited from the resources of the wider Richemont group. A 4 Hz movement with free-sprung balance and micro-rotor, the P.4100 features twin mainspring barrels for a healthy 72 hours of power reserve and patented refinements to the GMT jumper system.
That takes away almost nothing from the watch, which is delightfully intuitive. The first place this becomes apparent is the simple day-date layout, which reveals nothing but the critical information on the dial. Perhaps for this reason, Panerai saw fit to include the Calendario Perpetuo text at six, which on one hand feels superfluous, but it balances the wordmarks at twelve and is at least rendered in an appealing font.
By concealing its complicated core, the PAM01575 takes after minimalist perpetual calendars like those of H. Moser & Cie. The month and leap-year discs, which usually take up valuable dial real estate, have been relocated to the back of the movement, alongside a four-digit year display and power-reserve indicator.
These design choices speak to a clear understanding of the priority of information for calendar watches, which should emphasise the date and day. The secondary location of the month and leap-year indicators makes logical sense since they are more useful when setting the watch than they are in day-to-day life.
Speaking of usefulness, the calendar functions of the P.4100 can all be adjusted via the crown. In this respect the PAM01575 is in good company with perpetuals from the likes of Ulysse Nardin, F.P. Journe and Audemars Piguet. This enhances the robustness of the case by eliminating case pushers, and conveniently dispenses with the need for a stylus to adjust the date settings.
Furthermore, the indicators can be adjusted forward or backward, meaning there’s no penalty for over-shooting the current date like there is with certain crown-operated perpetual calendars from IWC and Jaeger-LeCoultre. If that weren’t enough, there’s no ‘dead zone’, meaning the adjustments can be made at any time of the day or night.
This combination of features makes the P.4100 stand out from the wider field of commonplace modular perpetual calendar designs that are unimaginative in layout and operation. But Panerai didn’t stop there, and added a second time zone hand that corresponds with an AM/PM indicator.
The solution is elegant, since the AM/PM serves to help with the setting process, and the GMT hand can be (mostly) hidden beneath the hour hand when at home. The high-spec movement also features hacking seconds with a return-to-zero mechanism — a surprising touch.
Concluding thoughts
At first glance, a platinum perpetual calendar from Panerai makes little sense. In some ways, it’s diametrically opposed to the time-only steel watches that made the brand famous. It’s not even especially novel, since the movement debuted in 2021. And yet the PAM01575 succeeds because it applies the brand’s military-inspired DNA to the layout and functionality of a revered haute horlogerie complication, and by doing so advances both the art and science of the perpetual calendar wristwatch.
