The Breitling Watch Blog

Panerai has truly evolved as a watch company, in only 15 short years since the rebirth of the brand, the watchmaker has managed to become one of the hottest brands in swiss made men’s watches. They have also released a new line of manufacture movements, making Panerai officially a watch manufacture.

I’ve been reading a bit about Panerai lately, because the brand interests me. And since the new Panerai has only been around since 1993, the amount of information is manageable. For Panerai lovers, this is all old new.. but Panerai has a whole new host of models out now and four Calibers that were released in around 2006.

Here is a wonderful Panerai video showing the construction of the Caliber P2002 movement from Panerai. A fantastic 8 Day movement with three barrels.

Here is a quick overview of all the movements that are produced by Panerai In-House:

Caliber P2002
Eight-Day Power Reserve
Manual Winding
GMT Complication
Power Reserve Indicator
Three Spring Barrels
245 Parts

Caliber P2003
Ten-Day Power Reserve
Automatic Winding
GMT Complication
Power Reserve Indicator
Three Spring Barrels
281 Parts

Caliber P2004
Eight-Day Power Reserve
Manual Winding
GMT Complication
Power Reserve Indicator
Column Wheel Chronograph With 1 Pusher
Three Spring Barrels
333 Parts

Caliber P2005
Six-Day Power Reserve
Manual Winding
GMT Complication
Power Reserve Indicator On Back
30 Second Tourbillon Escapement
Three Spring Barrels
243 Parts

And here is a shot of the Limited Edition Panerai Luminor 1950 Tourbillon (Caliber P2005), very large at 47mm, and very expensive at 79,000 Euros:

There have been three types of lumes that have been used on watch dials to enable reading the time in the dark. These include Super-LumiNova, Tritium and Tritium Tubes (Trasers). Nowadays, pretty much all watches use SuperLuminova or Trasers. Some watches have the marking “T – Swiss Made – T” to indicate Tritium, and “L – Swiss Made – L” to indicate Super-LumiNova on the dial.

Super-LumiNova
Also called photo-luminescent pigment, Luminova needs to be charged by light in order to glow. It is non-radioactive and slowly decreases in brightness throughout the night until it is recharged with more light. All modern watches use Super-Luminova aside from the ones that use Tritium Tubes.

Tritium
Tritium is a radioactive isotope of Hydrogen, and is no longer used on watch dials due to it’s radioactivity. Tritum glows without the need to be recharged and will slowly decrease in luminosity over time. This takes many (5+) years.

Trasers
These are glass tubes filled with Tritium Gas and with the inside of the tube coated with phosphor to create the color of the glow. They come in many different colors such as Orange, Blue, Green and Red. The Tritium Gas is sealed within the glass tube so though they are radioactive, they do not emit any radiation. Trasers typically glow for 10-20 years. Ball and Luminox are two Swiss watch companies that use Trasers extensively in their watches.

And now, here are some cool Lume shots for you to check out! Notice the larger lumed areas make the watch easier to read, and also last longer. Couldn’t find any shots of Tritium… but got lots of Luminova and a Traser.

Rolex Submariner

Omega Seamaster

Omega Seamaster ChronoDiver

Ball EMII Diver

Fortis B-42

Breitling SuperOcean

Breitling B-1 with Backlight

The star of the movie “War” with Jason Stratham is now wearing a new watch…

Surprisingly, its not a “tough” watch, chunky like a Breitling or an Omega, which is almost cliche these days… no it’s not. Jet Li is a man with class, not your typical Martial Arts tough guy. A classy, not-at-all-understated watch for the Bruce Lee of the new Millenium: A Piaget Polo

Beautiful watch with plenty of class, and 5.5 carats of diamonds to boot! This puppy retails at around $33,400. A fairly understated watch running a Piaget 504P In-House Movement.

Piaget Polo Mens Watch
18K Solid White Gold Case & Bracelet
Diamond Hour Markers set with Diamonds (5.5 ct).
Diameter: 38mm
Water Resistant to 30M.
Dial: Silver
Movement: Piaget 504P Automatic
Jewels: 26 jewels
Power Reserve: 40 Hours
Beats: 21600 vph
Date: Displayed at 6 o’clock

The list of Celebrity Chefs that wear Breitling is quite long, and quite peculiar really. Breitling is first an aviation watch, not a chef watch. So why do so many Celeb Chef’s wear them? Possibly because they look so damn cool. 🙂 I suppose 5 chefs isn’t that many.. but there might be more. Aside from Rappers, I think celeb chef’s might be the highest per capita of Breitling wearers around!

The list now includes:
Ming Tsai – Ming is an American Chef with a show called Simply Ming
Ralph Pagano – Ralph Pagano is an up and coming chef that came runner up in the first Hell’s Kitchen Series
Antony Worrall-Thomson
Gordon Ramsay – Gordon is the head chef in the cooking reality show Hell’s Kitchen
James Martin – Yet Another Celeb Chef popular in the UK appearing on several BBC Cooking shows.

You might notice that on many of the sites you can see the chefs displaying their Breitling’s very prominently. In fact, Ming Tsai has a link and logo to Breitling’s own site. Perhaps he is a sponsored ambassador.

Wolfgang Puck wears a Panerai… but still shows he has a taste for unique watches.

I’m always looking to expanding that Breitling ambassador and celebrity list, so if you know of any that are missing, Let me know!

http://www.breitlingsource.com/ambassadors_celebrities.shtml

I’ve noticed that for the last year or two there have been a lot of Dealer clocks for sale on ebay, primarily Panerai, Audemars Piguet and Patek Philippe are what I’ve seen, though the list is much longer than that. I’ve seen Breitling (And damn do I want one!), Blancpain, Tag Heuer, Jaeger LeCoultre and many, many others. My Question is this though: How do so many brand new dealer clocks end up on ebay and are always sold by some ebay company located in Canada?

And these clocks don’t go cheap.. anywhere from $400 to several thousand sometimes! And they are made of plastic usually. Some oddities always come up like Panerai Coffee table clocks as well. Really however, in the long run it is cheaper to buy lots of Panerai clocks than it is to buy lots of Panerai watches.. so maybe the asking price isn’t as high as one would think.

Still, they make neat additional items to supplement our watch collecting hobby and really allow us to personalize our homes and others spaces to reflect our interests! So next time you have $500 to spend if its not enough for a watch, it might be enough for a clock!