Panerai Luminor Marina PAM 422 Panerai Watch Review

Hi, this is Tim of The 1916 Company. Welcome and thanks for logging on. If you love this watch, email me. Tim also at the1916company.com for purchase pricing and availability questions concerning this watch. Today, we discuss a launch from 2012, although the example in my hand was made in 2022. This is the Panerai Luminor Marina 1950 PAM 422. Closely related to the 423, the 422 has its power reserve on the case back where frankly it belongs. This is a Luminor 1950 in the vein of the original PAM 127 of 2002. It's designed to look more like the 6152 combat watch made by Panerai during the 1950s and it's actually a more sophisticated case than the Bettorini case design that helped define Panerai in its first decade of the 90s and early 2000s, but it's a big watch in steel, 47 millimeters in diameter. You can see 17.5 millimeters thick lug to lug, 57.3 millimeters with a 26 millimeter spacing between the lugs. We'll throw it on my wrist, which is 16 centimeters circumference. Big is the look. I think this wears just fine. It's a bit absurd, but then Panerai is a bit absurd inherently. The watch should look a little too large. Just look at the edge of the case, not the lugs. Look at the edge of the case. That's in of the edge of my wrist. That's how you size up a Panerai. So if your wrist is my size or larger, this is going to fit just fine. Large, but purposely so. And it has a purposeful look, though it's also an upscale model, originally specced with a leather strap in gaiter rather than the more conventional calfskin. So you can see on the bottom, we got calfskin, no gouging, no crimping, Panerai factory strap right here. Up top, you can see we've got a very broad folded edge. It's actually not sheer cut. We got a monotone stitch. We got large, oval, semi-rectangular scales, a good cut of the animal with a little bit of a distressed grain, semi-gloss black, and a lot of bolstering to give it volume. Got a Panerai trapezoidal pin buckle, and you'll note both the buckle and the strap at the lugs fixed by screws and bars. No spring bars here. This is how old school Panerais do you want to see it done. Chances are, if you're a collector of the brand, you've already got jeweler's screwdrivers to start strap swapping, and you will want to strap swap or swap straps. A 26-millimeter spacing between the lugs means you've got a universe of OEM and aftermarket options. No brand, including Rolex, has the strap aftermarket that Panerai has, and not every Panerai has its reference number printed between the lugs, but this one does. You can see this is the 1950 case. It's got a more complex shape than the Bettorini case, which is often called a tuna can. While this looks like it might be a plexi, it's actually a double boxed and cambered sapphire. We have the device protecting the crown, and frankly, you know what brand and what model line just by looking at that. It's the most distinctive crown device in the world, and we do consider this a device. Take a look. It's a lever that locks the crown, and there's a little runner bearing inside the cam to make it smoother and more refined. Open it up. Now, I can wind the watch. I can even set the hour independently while the watch continues to tick. Assuming the watch is wound, it will continue to tick. We'll wind it up. So, you have that independently mobile hour hand. So, if you are traveling between time zones, you're not going to disrupt your seconds hand. You're not going to disrupt your minute hand. You've got a lot of flexibility there. Now, watch the seconds hand. When you pull the crown out all the way, now you've got zero reset hacking, which allows you to synchronize easily to a reference time. Again, the device protecting the crown, not just a distinctive design, but it does a couple of things that are still helpful to this day. First, perpendicular hits, more protection than a standard shouldered crown guard. Second, you're never going to jump in the water with an unlocked crown by accident because that's hard to miss. Third, much easier to grip this little lever if your hands are wet, sweaty, or gloved than if you're trying to undo a tightly screwed down crown. And finally, because you're compressing and decompressing the crown seal, you're not wearing out that seal or the stem tube assembly along the way. Lovely rose gold accented hands. You can see we've got a Panerai sandwich dial where we have a stencil with the indices and numerals over a solid disc of loom. In this case, faux tina is used, but I think it's a nice complementary color with the rose gold accents. So, from an aesthetic standpoint, I like it, even if faux tina is inherently a little bit hokey. But then again, Panerai is all about bravado and not taking yourself too, too seriously. No shortage of loom. Luminor it is. Once upon a time, Radiumere and Luminor were the names of successive radioactive paints, with Radiumere far more toxic than Luminor. Today, they describe model lines, but that's where the terminology comes from. Flip it all over. We've got a 36.6 millimeter pocket watch size Panerai exclusive caliber P3001. Now, you can see there's a power reserve indicator on the case back. The 423 has it on the dial side. I like this better. Also, absurdly, that index is luminescent. I don't know why, but hey, fun. Also, you can see 21 joule, 3 hertz. It's shock resistant with a full balance bridge and a free sprung balance. Two mainspring barrels. You can see this is the more evolved 3000 series bridge layout, as we've got the sort of three-quarter bridge, but then also finger bridges for the tail end of the drivetrain. Again, three hertz, full bridge, free sprung for shock resistance, twin mainspring barrels, three days of power reserve, independently mobile hour hand, and then zero reset hacking seconds. We've got decoration that is handsome, although mechanically applied. Here, we've got beveling, polished screw heads, satination across the bridges, designed to look like a vintage Angelus SF240 or Rolex Cote d'Ivoire 618. Media blast, you can see that underneath the power reserve indicator, and then there's engine turning on the base plate. And again, this is a big movement to fill the case back. We've got a hundred meter water resistance and the mill summation is Y-series. So we know this was made in 2022, although the watch in my hand was retailed in 2023. So if you love this watch, reach out to teamosso at the1916company.com for purchase and pricing details.