Before I bought the Panerai Black Seal PAM 183, I bought this RXW MM25 Poseidon. Its a Japanese company, but a Swiss Made watch made by Ken’s Trading. While it looks similar to the 183, its quite different in person and on the wrist. The watch came with two 26x26mm straps, quite different from the 26x22mm straps that come with the PAM183.

Here is the watch shown with the lizard pattern 26x26mm strap that came with it. The watch has fixed lugs so straps need to be screwed in with Rivets, making aftermarket straps very difficult to find in variety. Most will have to be custom made or have Rivets in them, which is not the best compromise because sometimes a guy just doesn’t want rivets in his strap! As you can see, it has a great sandwich dial and it glows like a torch.

Caseback is of the Solid Variety, hiding the Swiss Unitas 6497 movement inside. The caseback does proudly annouce the movement inside, as well as the 1000 Gauss Anti-Magnetic rating and 100m Water resistance. Also written on the back is “Luminova Plasmir Dial”, which means that it has a Luminova Sandwich dial.

Crown is a screw-down variety, just like the 183 but is a Brevet Swiss Crown. Its a great crown and feels good when winding. As you can see from the sideview shot, the Bezel protrudes out from the cushion shaped case a fair bit.

Here is the ever-important wrist-shot. When I got this I really really liked it… I thought it was a great looking watch and I couldn’t believe I didn’t like Radiomirs before. It wears quite a bit larger than my 183, but I have to say that after owning the 183, the RXW MM25 has lost a bit of its luster. I just did not want to wear it after getting the Black Seal, so I sold it! Bye bye MM25, but it was a great experience owning it, and I’m glad I did as it motivated me to buy the Panerai 183 Black Seal.

Wow, talk about rejuvenating one of what I felt was IWC’s more boring and dull lines… The Portofino line is refreshed with a brand new 8-day in-house movement, called the 59210. This is a beautifully crafted watch with the type of movement complications that I like the most: Simple, yet creative solutions to horological challenges that a collector and user of watches can benefit on a daily basis. An 8 Day power reserve is always useful, and the Power Reserve indicator also useful. The Date of course is something that I bet I read daily as well. No need for Chronograph or annual calendars here, as the efforts are put into more subtle areas of the watch.

Wow – I love that exhibition back. Quite possibly my favourite display back I’ve seen in a while. Love the large plates.

From IWC:
“Thanks mainly to its technological sophistication, the Portofino Hand-Wound Eight Days (Ref. 5101) has established itself as the flagship of the Portofino family. Its reputation is founded not so much on outward appearances but internal values: ticking away inside the case is the new IWC-manufactured movement from the 50000-calibre family. With its 37.8-millimetre diameter, the 59210 calibre is the same size as a pocket watch movement, but its design is incomparably more modern. The contemporary movement design, with its large bridges and plates, is highly robust and reliable, and designed to meet all the exacting demands of watch devotees in the 21st century. Despite its undisputed elegance, the Portofino Hand-Wound Eight Days is a watch designed for everyday use, not least because of its incredible stamina: it will run for precisely 192 hours – that’s 8 days – without any external help. Just how long the watch will continue to run before its owner needs to wind the movement can be read off from the power reserve display on the dial. IWC’s designers have remained true to the classical Portofino style, not only in the circular case with its smooth, flowing strap horns, but also in the design of the dial. The placing of the displays – small seconds at “6 o’clock”, date at “3 o’clock” and power reserve between “8” and “9” – ensures that the dial layout is finely balanced. The red gold Portofino Hand-Wound Eight Days comes with a slate-coloured dial, which likewise features indices made of solid red gold. There is also a choice of two models in steel, with either a black or silver-plated dial.”

I never really liked the Radiomir style watches from Panerai, even though I tried them on many many times. It wasn’t until one day I picked up a Risti-Scorned RXW MM25 Radiomir watch from a local fellow that it grew on me and I just had to buy this Panerai 183 when a guy I knew was selling it. In addition to the OEM strap, it came with a Kaktus strap which is what its shown on.

The Panerai Black Seal 183 is the model one up from the Base 210 Radiomir and features a small seconds at 9 o’clock and has the words “Black Seal” printed on the dial. It features a curved Sapphire crystal and exhibition caseback as well as a great black sandwich dial that glows like a torch. The PAM183 is a current model that has been in production since 2004.

The movement is an OP XI, based on the Unitas 6497/2 which is heavily modified by Panerai with custom bridges and other fanciness. This one is Chronometer certified, unlike the 210, which does not since it doesn’t have a second hand. With the new 3000 series movements from Panerai, this may soon be the end of these models.

The signed Panerai crown is nicely made, and is a screwdown crown – uncommon for handwind watches. But then Panerai watches are anything but common. The Crown on the 183 is easy to wind, and looks great with the blasted background behind the polished Officine Panerai logo. The lugs are inserted into the case and held in by screws. There are tiny rubber o-rings in the screws and lugs to prevent water from getting into the lug hole and rusting it from the inside out. Smart.

While its not too difficult to change straps on the 183, its nowhere near as easy to do as it is on a Luminor case, especially with the quick release.

And finally, the wrist shot. The 45mm Radiomir case is perfect for a semi-casual vintage style watch, especially when mounted on an aftermarket strap like this Kaktus strap shown. When mounted on an OEM strap, the watch dressed up quite a bit. The smaller 42mm Radiomirs are much more dressy than the 45mm 183 here, and would likely be better candidates if that was what you were looking for. The Panerai PAM183 that I snagged is a good in-between watch that wears especially well with jeans and a t-shirt in my opinion – the only thing I sometimes miss is the date function

This is to supplement the Video Review that I posted earlier.

While I recently sold this watch as it wasn’t getting any wrist time, I still loved the way it looked and for a 38mm watch, it received a surprisely large amount of compliments. The intricate dial is very captivating, and my photographs likely don’t do it justice. The Telemetre markings on the dial and subtle circularing patterning on the subdials give the watch that rare charm that some watches just seem to have.

As you can see, the watch has a curved sapphire crystal with AR coating. The hour and minute hands are filled with SuperLuminova, and glow just enough to read at night. The fixed bezel is on the thinner side, which gives the watch a decent presence due to the dial sizing and comes mounted on a Genuine Crocodile strap and signed Tang buckle.

The movement is an ETA 2894-2, with a chronograph and date at 4:30, which is nice and discreet on the dial.

The Screwdown crown is signed with the 5 ball bearing Eterna logo, and the pushers are a classic piston style. The case is a three-piece fully polished one, with 18mm lugs.

Caseback is brushed, with standard Eterna engravings and markings indicating the 30m water resistance, sapphire crystal and Swiss pedigree.

Here’s the Eterna Cambridge strapped on my 6.75″ wrist. Not too shabby. It actually wears pretty good for 38mm on the OEM strap, and looks even better on a Bund Pilot strap, which is what I wore the watch on the majority of the time I owned it.

Been rocking my PAM320 since I picked it up a month or two ago and it has been really hitting the spot! I have never been quite this satisfied with any Panerai I’ve owned. While I tend to feel like the manual winding models are more faithful to the heritage of the brand, I do find the automatic movement very convenient. The super-domed sapphire crystal models with the manual winding 7 day movements would be even better I think.

There’s my PAM320 shown mounted on a beautiful Dangerous9 strap, the first aftermarket strap I put on this watch. Beautiful 1950’s style case with the slightly curved crystal and sandwich dial. The case is so well made and the edges are finished perfectly. I am familiar with the difficulties of finishing cases, and the 1950’s case is not an easy case to manufacture and finish well.

The device protecting the crown has the “REG TM” marking on it, which is a feature I really like. This marking only appears on 1950 style cases. In the above shot you can see the crisp lines of the case, which are very impressive when you see it in person.

Here’s a shot of the dial mounted on a black Strapluxe strap. The 320 features 12-hr GMT hand, small seconds, date, power reserve indicator on the back, and seconds reset. Whenever the crown is pulled out all the way, the second hand resets to 0, which is a pretty cool feature. The sandwich dial glows like a torch.. I love how it glows when I get to the underground parking on my way to work in the morning.

And here’s the requisite exhibition back shot of the Panerai P.9001 Movement. The fantastic in-house movements from Panerai wouldn’t be the same without a display back. While they are not necessarily the prettiest movements, I love the large bridge plates, as they remind me of the 3/4 plate style watches popular with German manufacture. The way Panerai finishes their movements has a functional and simplistic beauty to them.

And the last shot here, with my PAM90 before I sold it. I have to admit that since selling the 90, I have not missed it because the 320 more than fills any void left by the 90. It has everything the PAM90 had and more. I much prefer the rear power reserve indicator as the cleaner dial is better looking to me. Combine the nearly perfect movement (in terms or features) and the amazing case work on this model and the perfect size, this is definately the perfect Panerai for me in this price range.