Panerai Luminor Firenze 8 Giorni PAM01734 Watch Review
To coincide with the 100th anniversary of its Florence boutique, Panerai has released two models: the Panerai Luminor Firenze 8 Giorni PAM01734 and the Luminor Firenze 8 Giorni PAM01794. In his own inimitable style, self-confessed Paneristi and Rolex obsessive, Mark McArthur-Christie, delves into the Florence-based brand’s history before exploring the composition of both limited-edition references.
Image – Panerai Luminor Firenze 8 Giorni PAM01734
Panerai x Regia Marina
You have to wonder what the Italian Navy was doing to its watches in the 1950s. The massive Panerai ref. 3646 was apparently not tough enough, and its divers needed something new that could take even more of a licking. Presumably, this involved being able to double as a knuckleduster, a spare torpedo tube door or something to weld to the side of a submarine.
The Regia Marina did what they usually did; knocked on Giuseppe Panerai’s door, brief in hand. The watches he supplied to the Navy – the refs. 6152 and 6152/1, really the first Luminors – are the inspiration behind two new limited edition watches, the Luminor Firenze 8 Giorni PAM01734 in Platinumtech (unsurprisingly a proprietary platinum alloy) and the PAM01794 in steel.
Image – Panerai Luminor Firenze 8 Giorni PAM01794
Orologeria Svizzera – 100 years
Slightly confusingly, the new watches aren’t to commemorate the birth of the Luminor but the 100th anniversary of Panerai’s rather smart premises on Piazza San Giovanni, opposite Florence’s Baptistery, under the name Orologeria Svizzera. And that script above the door tells quite the story…
At first glance, the two new watches are typical Luminors. Look a little closer though and they’re actually a compressed history lesson. The case shape, the crown bridge, the eight-day movement and even the words on the dial each point back to the fact that, for much of its military life, a Panerai was a Rolex in Italian naval uniform.
Panerai – the Rolex years
This is because Panerai did not start out as a watchmaker, it was somewhat more hardcore. The Florentine firm was a retailer, repairer and supplier of precision instruments to the Regia Marina. It provided compasses, depth gauges and, crucially, Radiomir (the radium-based luminous compound patented in 1916, long before people realised what nasty stuff radium is). The Regia Marina slathered the luminescent treatment on shipborne dials, sights and gradation scales and, to a lesser extent, watch dials. One just hopes they didn’t lick the brushes.
That said, radium was – literally – brilliant stuff. When the Navy’s frogmen needed a watch they could read and rely on underwater, Panerai had the naval relationship, the dial design know-how and the lume, but not the manufacturing capability to produce the watch itself. Rolex, on the other hand, did. Its Oyster technology had established an impressive reputation for water resistance, helped along by the remarkable Mercedes Gleitze, who’d swum the channel in 1927 wearing her Oyster, so Rolex manufactured the watches and Panerai supplied them to the Navy.
The result was the watch we mentioned earlier, the ref. 3646 Radiomir: a big cushion case with wire lugs, a Rolex-finished Cortébert movement and a Panerai sandwich dial that featured numerals cut through a top plate exposing the luminous layer of radium pigment underneath. It was emphatically not subtle, but it wasn’t meant to be. It was designed to be seen underwater in foul, dark and dangerous conditions. And, like so many watches designed to do one particular job, it became a classic design. Under the Italian Radiomir dial, though, it was Swiss to the core – Orologeria Svizzera.
Image – Panerai Luminor Firenze 8 Giorni PAM01794
Panerai – the advent of Luminor
Two things changed in the post-war years. First, the lume. In 1949, Panerai registered Luminor as a trademark, with far less harmful tritium-based luminous material subsequently replacing their radium dial compound. Now it was only the Navy’s watches that glowed in the dark. Second, the case. As we’ve seen, the Regia Marina needed something more robust, and in the mid-1950s Rolex supplied the refs. 6152 and 6152/1 – among the last watch cases it would manufacture for Panerai.
The 6152/1 is the ancestor of the two new watches. Panerai ordered 500-ish examples from Rolex and they were delivered around 1955–56, all with large screw-down crowns. The case was slightly bigger than the 6152’s, with enough capacity to house either the Rolex calibre 618 or, following some tweakery, a longer-running Angelus movement.
Then Panerai did something that would come to define the brand. Towards the end of the 1950s, it began fitting its own patented crown-protecting device to these Rolex cases: a hinged external case bridge with a lever that pressed the crown tight against its seal. A neat way to protect not just the crown, but make it snug down against the case side too. Fitting it required machining the side of the existing case and replacing the oversized screw-down crown with one designed to work with the lever. The half-moon guard that now identifies a Panerai (and a fellow Panerista) across a room was, in effect, a Florentine modification attached to a Genevan case.
That mid-1950s delivery effectively marked the end of Panerai’s reliance on Rolex for its watch cases. From then on, the Florentine firm took control of the design and specification of its watches, modifying its remaining stock of Rolex cases as well as sourcing components elsewhere. The Swiss movements remained, but the watches were becoming unmistakably Panerai’s own.
Not that ‘design’ meant quite what it does today. These were nautical instruments, built to do a job in demanding conditions. Think gun turret, not handbag.
Image – Panerai Luminor Firenze 8 Giorni PAM01794
Panerai – the Angelus SF 240
Cases developed, the eight-day movement was next. The trigger project was the GPF 2/56, a 60 mm (and you thought 47 mm was chunky) diver for the Egyptian Navy. This was also the time when Panerai developed the crown-protecting device and adopted the Angelus SF 240: a hand-wound movement with an eight-day power reserve. Another match to the new ref. 1734 and 1794.
The firm’s logic was, as ever, practical. An eight-day movement meant less winding and setting. And less winding and setting meant fewer occasions to unscrew the crown, so fewer chances for water – or dust – to get in and wear the crown tube seals. Wind and set it once a week instead of once a day and you have an inherently more reliable watch. Handy when there’s a good chance being in the wrong place at the wrong time means you’re going to get shot at.
Panerai then carried that thinking back into its stock of 6152/1 cases. During the 1960s, some had their Rolex 618 movements replaced with Angelus SF 240s, originally an alarm clock movement, albeit a small one.
Auction house Phillips’ research puts the run at around 30 pieces with this eight-day movement, of which only eight are known to survive. The Escapement charabanc is already warming up for a team expedition to Florence’s next car boot sale. We’ll be checking the charity shops, too.
Some were even fitted with transparent casebacks engraved ‘Officine Panerai – Brevettato’, allowing the Angelus movement to be seen. Others acquired new Luminor dials as the older radium-based Radiomir material was phased out. All this makes for interesting collecting and plenty of stories. It’s also another neat link to the new watches.
Image – Panerai Luminor Firenze 8 Giorni PAM01734
Panerai – the modern Luminor
By this point, the ingredients of the modern Luminor were in place: cushion case, solid lugs, crown bridge and, in the Angelus-equipped versions, eight days between winds.
Among the surviving 6152/1 variants is an unusual 1960s prototype, now in a private collection, with ‘Panerai Firenze’ on the dial instead of the more familiar branding. Its crown bridge has parallel grooves cut into the inner faces on either side of the crown, supposedly intended to help a diver grip the crown when winding the watch with gloved hands. Whether the story is true or not, this historical watch also served as inspiration for both new models.
Image – Panerai Luminor Firenze 8 Giorni PAM01734
Panerai Luminor Firenze 8 Giorni PAM01734 & PAM01794 – introduction
The 1734 and 1794 take the original 6152/1’s somewhat puck-like 47 mm proportions down to a more manageable 44 mm cushion case, carry an engraved ‘Panerai Firenze’ inscription at 12 o’clock on a circular-brushed sandwich dial, and run Panerai’s in-house P.5000 calibre. They are hand-wound, have two barrels and the vital eight days of power reserve.
Sound familiar? It’s the Angelus idea in modern, rather better finished, form. The domed sapphire crystals are a nod to the perspex of the originals, while the luminous material does its job without either trying to kill you or attempting an artificially aged vintage colour. Despite the two watches essentially sharing the same architecture, Panerai has given them very different characters.
The steel PAM01794 is the more faithful ‘watch-to-do-a-job`: solid case back, 300 m of water resistance and the boutique, marking its anniversary, engraved where the movement would otherwise show.
Image – Panerai Luminor Firenze 8 Giorni PAM01794
The platinum PAM01734 is the more historically interesting. According to Panerai, it’s the first production model to adopt the grooved crown bridge of the Firenze prototype. It’s a small detail, but a functional and historic one, taken directly from the original watch. The end of the lever is also slightly more prominent and a little more designed. Given Panerai’s visual trademark, it’s all the more significant.
Image – Panerai Luminor Firenze 8 Giorni PAM01734
Unless you’re picking them up and hefting them, the dials are where the two watches feel most different. The PAM01794’s anthracite is the darker, more military of the pair, and its hands are properly heat-blued. The PAM01734’s forest green with gold-effect pencil hands is warmer and more obviously an upstage precious-metal watch. It would be fascinating to know what one of those original Regia Marina divers, issued with his steel tool of a watch, would have made of the platinum version.
Both use green Super-LumiNova, and the ‘Panerai Firenze’ inscription is engraved into the dial surface rather than printed in a contrasting colour, so it reveals itself neatly as you angle the dial and the light catches it.
Image – Panerai Luminor Firenze 8 Giorni PAM01734
Panerai Luminor Firenze 8 Giorni PAM01734 & PAM01794 – P.5000 calibre
The hand-wound P.5000 calibre is a sensible choice. Befitting a watch with its roots in operational service, it’s functional rather than pretty. That said, the movement is no tractor. It is equipped with a variable inertia balance, runs at 21,600 vph (3Hz) and features 21 jewels, Incabloc shock protection and a balance bridge anchored at both ends. At just 4.5 mm thick, it’s relatively slim for a movement offering eight days of power reserve, even if its home is the heavyweight Luminor case.
Image – Panerai Luminor Firenze 8 Giorni PAM01734
On the platinum watch, you can see it through the sapphire caseback. On the steel watch, it’s hidden behind an engraving of the boutique’s façade and ‘Officine Panerai Firenze’.
Image – Panerai Luminor Firenze 8 Giorni PAM01794
Panerai Luminor Firenze 8 Giorni PAM01734 & PAM01794 – Tuscan leather straps
The Florentine theme carries, appropriately, through to the accessories. Each watch comes on a Tuscan calf strap hot-stamped with the Florentine lily – black on the platinum, dark brown on the steel – with an appropriately diveworthy second rubber strap (green or black) and a tool to transfer the buckle between them. The PAM01734’s buckle is white gold rather than platinum.
Panerai Luminor Firenze 8 Giorni PAM01734 & PAM01794 – mahogany presentation box
Both arrive in the sort of mahogany presentation box Panerai is now famous for and for which you’ll probably need planning permission. They’re lovely things, though, with properly dovetailed corners and a metal plaque depicting the boutique’s entrance.
Closing remarks
The lineage of the two Firenze models links to the historical 6152/1, but Panerai hasn’t simply borrowed the general appearance of a vintage reference. Take the grooved bridge, for example. It’s an almost invisible modification to one of watchworld’s most recognisable designs, yet it actually has a job to do. If it really makes winding easier, there’s a reasonable argument for extending it beyond a limited-edition platinum watch.
Image – Panerai Luminor Firenze 8 Giorni PAM01794
What Panerai has got absolutely right here is restraint. This could have been a proper fuss-fest with anniversary script on the dial, a gussied-up small seconds and a huge Officine Panerai logo. Instead, the firm has given us just the numerals, the Firenze inscription and the story in the design of the watches themselves.
The 44 mm case is also a welcome concession for those of us with wrists that struggle with 47 mm (or who don’t have wrists like military divers). It’s still unmistakably a Luminor, just one that is rather easier to imagine wearing every day than its 47 mm ancestor.
At £9,200, the steel PAM01794 is a chunk more than Panerai’s regular hand-wound Luminor models, despite sharing much of the same mechanical specification. The additional cost buys the Firenze dial, anniversary detailing, special presentation and limited-edition status rather than a fundamentally different watch.
Image – Panerai Luminor Firenze 8 Giorni PAM01734
The platinum PAM01734 is a different proposition altogether. At £47,200, it’s the sort of watch for people who have a La Marzocco at home and another at the office, run classic Alfas as dailies and have probably thought more than once about a Panerai tattoo. It’s very much in serious Paneristi territory, where rarity, precious metal and historical connections matter at least as much as mechanical capability.
There’s something fitting here. The Luminor itself emerged from a Rolex-built case that Panerai modified to suit its own needs, in Florence, a short walk from the shop now celebrating its centenary with these two watches. Happy anniversary.
Further reading
Technical Specifications
- Model: Panerai Luminor Firenze 8 Giorni PAM01734
- Case: Platinumtech case and crown protecting bridge featuring parallel grooves cut into the inner sides facing the crown, 44 mm diameter, water resistance 10 ATM (100 m), sapphire crystal to the front and exhibition caseback
- Functions: Hours, minutes
- Movement: P.5000 calibre, hand-wound movement, frequency 21,600 vph (3 Hz), 21 jewels, power reserve 8 days
- Strap: black calf Tuscan leather strap featuring a hot-stamped
- pattern of the Florentine lily, white gold trapezoidal buckle. Additional green rubber strap.
- Price: £47,200 (RRP as of 10.9.2026)
- Limited Edition: 100 pieces
- Model: Panerai Luminor Firenze 8 Giorni PAM01794
- Case: stainless steel case and crown protecting bridge, 44 mm diameter, water resistance 10 ATM (100 m), sapphire crystal to the front. Brushed steel closed case-back with the Florence boutique engraving
- Functions: Hours, minutes
- Movement: P.5000 calibre, hand-wound movement, frequency 21,600 vph (3 Hz), 21 jewels, power reserve 8 days
- Strap: dark brown calf Tuscan leather strap featuring a hot-stamped pattern of the Florentine lily, white gold trapezoidal buckle. Additional black rubber strap.
- Price: £9,200 (RRP as of 10.9.2026)
- Limited Edition: 1000 pieces
