Panerai overpriced?

[Fred_Tan]

.......mind the gap between 1956 and 1980 where the company essentailly went no where. even the 1956 supply deal to the Egyptian navy....bear in mind whatever heroics, they were actually on the losting side of the war!!!and supplying egyptian navy aint exactly something to shout about......

I dunno where you got your history from, but I flip thru the book titled, "Panerai in Florence 150 Years of History" by former CEO of Panerai, Mr Dino Zei.....there's no gap in any decades for Panerai.....

Bear in mind that Richmont or previously Vendome Grp only bought the rights to to use the Luminor & Radomir casing for commercial purpose in 1997.

The division in charge of producing watches & instruments for Italian Navy is still a privately own company that's not purchased by Richemont of anyone else, ever.
It's still churning out watches & instruments under full secrecy as it's protected by Italian secrecy laws that strictly prohibit any publications or reproductions or manufacturing.

The very fact that no watch can use the wordings "Marina Militare" without approval from Italian Navy is a proof of this.
PAM36, 217 & 267s, "Marina Militare" prints were approved by Italian Navy for public use.

If you speak of gap, mind you that between 1980s up to 1996, almost 2000 watchmaking companies & related support services Co. went bust in Switzerland no thanks to Quartz revolution that got started by ironically a consortium on Swiss watchmakers that was copied by Seiko, Citizen Orient, & Casio.

Only a handful of watch companies today are 100% manufacturer.

Even Rolex SA do not & has never claim in-house horlogerie manufacturer.
The links or bracelets for Rolex are made by ARTeLinks.
Hands & dials for Rolex are outsourced to ArTeCad.
Steel case for Rolex watches are made by SWATCH group
Rolex movements are made by Valjoux's secret assembly division that's protected under Swiss law & it's ebouche are loosely implemented by Dubuis Depraz.
Diamonds for Rolex are cut and polished by

FYI, ARTeLinks, ArTeCad, Valjoux & Dubuis Depraz are owned by SWATCH and shared by LVMH, Richemont & many others in a secret deal chaired by Swiss govt since 1997.

Everyone in the industry knows about this.

To add, except PP & VC, almost all of Swiss watch making industry share the SWATCH facilities which actually owned by Swiss govt and this included Audemars Piguet, Breilting, Zenith, BRM, Tiffacy, Mont Blanc, Chopard, Omega, TAG & many other brands.

The only thing that Rolex made in-house is the gold case in it's own foundries.

The reason everyone had to depend on shared facilities is due to many blueprints and watch making skills that were lost along with the passing of time, watchmaer, masters & craftsmans during these dark period of mechanical watches in 1980 & 1990s.

The situation is so bad that in 1990s, no one in Switzerland apart from ValJoux's ETA arm know how implement an ebouche.

So, after the revival on interest in mechanical watches thanks, ironcially to the our Japanese collectors who got sick of Quartz in mid-1990s, almost all of wathes & this include Rolex are actually made by Swatch till today.

These companies like Rolex, AP, GP, Omega & TAG cover up the story of facility sharing by using a stakeholdings as claim that that foundry on this location & this bulding belongs to them when in actual fact, the building has not sighboards and is SHARED.

Pls goto Valley of Joux to check my facts...none of the foundries are tagged.

Many watch companies like Omega, Cartier, Heuer, Zenith & etc had to be liquidated & put up for sale. Most brands that're viable are bought by Swatch, Richemont, LVMH & etc which explains this arrangement.

In fact, 2 yrs ago, BRM, Graham, Hublot, B&R & U-Boat up the ante when the sourced semi-complete parts from China using child & slave labour!

The fact that Panerai is clean & above this mess is the reason why it's so collectible even when it never or seldom make any case till 1980s.
It never make any mvmt till 2002!

Patek is used by royal dynasties worldwide since 1880s.
If you got $, then go buy PP & tell everone it's not overpriced.

Rolex is nothing but a mere watch trader till 1950s which print "Rolex" on peoples' product.

The very fact it was rejected by NASA for space missions & US Airforce test flight speaks volumes in 1960 & 1970s.
Rolex gave the stupid reason their USA sales dept agent was late to deliver the watches....I find this reason very amusing as how can you miss delivering all the watches for all the 19 Apollo missions?

Using Edmund Hillary who actually is not the 1st man on Everest but claimed to be so, reckless Pan-Am pilots that practically crashed so many planes that Pan-Am folded, LPGA tournaments, meaningless Regattas, mundane James Bonds films & ads blitz in every known maganizes & nations' dailies worldwide is the only good thing about Rolex & nothing else since 1940s till today.

Luckily James bond realized this and changed to Omega.

AP is only good in churning out same shaped & same mvmt watches under many material guises like rubber & carbon for it's ROO using losers like Juan Pablo Montoya, Rubbens Barrachelo & Shaquille O'Neil and serial rapist & mollester Arnold Schwarzenegger bereft of any real applications history.

I thanks heavens Panerai is the only brand that's free from any ambassador.
I shudder to think how much money actually went to team Alinghi, Michael Schumacher, Nicole Kidman, Kimi Raikonen, Uma Thurman, Arnold Palmer, Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, John Travolta, Nicholas Cage, Internation Space Station & many others than going into the watch.

In fact, I lost count how many brands sponsored Antartica expeditions.

The very reason why these brands had to use ambassadors & event or expediction to ply their watches if the very reason why so many like me are put off by these brands.

I rather pay USD30k for a watch that's worth USD300 like PAM341 because it's a hommage to the real people who use it in 1956 in Egypt than cheats like Edmund Hillary and losers like Juan Pablo Montoya & Barrachelo.

I've never lost any monies on Panerai.
I lost so much monies on Rolex that I lost count....

Lastly, no offense here, ALL WATCHES ARE OVERPRIZED....
Anyone who paid above USD100 for a watch is overpaying....

[116520]

your limit is much bigger than my limit....

thks mate, just contributing my limited horological knowledge.

[darth-khips]

You know what darth-khips bro. I always love to read your comments, fair, no bias, middle... great to have you here and pls contribute more...

thks mate, just contributing my limited horological knowledge.

[Ender]

the thing i love about panerai is the unique marketing and branding excercise. how a work tool morphed into a luxury item. the brand DNA is just superb, ignoring theose nonsense about being a "heros watch".
the brand is also moving up the value chain, with tourbillion, own manufactury at ValFleurier, or more accurately dedicated manufactury from richmont. the development of own caliber p2002, p2003 auto, p2004 and now p2005 tourbillion.

work tool into a luxury item? nothing unique there ... today's submariner, explorer, turnograph, milgauss are known as sports model, but when they were first introduced some 40-50yrs ago, they were created for specific professions and known as toolwatches.
marketing and branding is unavoidable for all luxury items and to a very large extent, is directly related to the success of the product... check out this snippet of information found from the website of another collector across the causeway

"To launch his company's new timepiece into the popular consciousness, Wilsdorf came up with an ingenious publicity stunt. After learning that a young British woman named Mercedes Gleitze was planning to swim across the English Channel, he presented her with a Rolex Oyster and dispatched a photographer to chronicle her endeavor. When Gleitze emerged triumphantly from the sea, her Oyster was keeping perfect time and, true to its name, had remained waterproof. Wilsdorf capitalized with a splashy front-page ad in London's Daily Mail newspaper, touting "The Wonder Watch that Defies the Elements: Moisture Proof. Waterproof. Heat Proof. Vibration Proof. Cold Proof. Dust Proof." It was the genesis of the famous Rolex testimonial ad campaign that continues to this day."

as for moving up the food chain, developing its own movement is the right way forward for it to be taken seriously though personally, till today, i find it hard to reconcile the toubillion thingy though with its begining as a tool watch....

[Ender]

yeah, i just wanted to create a more balance view of panerai. the "rich" romance and heritage must be balanced by realizing that their watches towards the end actually FAILED italian naval requirements. mind the gap between 1956 and 1980 where the company essentailly went no where. even the 1956 supply deal to the Egyptian navy....bear in mind whatever heroics, they were actually on the losting side of the war!!!and supplying egyptian navy aint exactly something to shout about.
...

er, not sure what happened btw 1956-1980. also, i think whether they were on the winning/ losing side during ww2 (iirc, the italians eventually joined the allies and so were on the winning side! ) is not really an issue, the point is that their watches were made for war and did see war.

[Oceanklassik]

And so after reading darth-khips', and as per subject, pams are still overpriced !

[shuseido]

You know what darth-khips bro. I always love to read your comments, fair, no bias, middle... great to have you here and pls contribute more...

[darth-khips]

One of e reasons y Pams are expensive is they produce around 30,000 of those per year, Richmont can up production but e price will drop after tat which dun think they would want. Scarcity will make it more exp.

the thing i love about panerai is the unique marketing and branding excercise. how a work tool morphed into a luxury item. the brand DNA is just superb, ignoring theose nonsense about being a "heros watch".

the brand is also moving up the value chain, with tourbillion, own manufactury at ValFleurier, or more accurately dedicated manufactury from richmont. the development of own caliber p2002, p2003 auto, p2004 and now p2005 tourbillion.

[darth-khips]

without doubt, the unique and rich heritage of pams is one of its selling point. personally, its heritage was not a factor in me getting my pams, I just liked the way they looked
however, like rolex, omega, blancpain, longines, zenith, heuer etc there are always some models more sought after that others so you got to do your research before committing e.g those who plunged into the ferrari series probably lost monies (but then, these may become highly collectible in future who knows???)

yeah, i just wanted to create a more balance view of panerai. the "rich" romance and heritage must be balanced by realizing that their watches towards the end actually FAILED italian naval requirements. mind the gap between 1956 and 1980 where the company essentailly went no where. even the 1956 supply deal to the Egyptian navy....bear in mind whatever heroics, they were actually on the losting side of the war!!!and supplying egyptian navy aint exactly something to shout about.

nevertheless, i must admit having a rich heriatge is BETTER then none. U boat for example is just some brand founder that dusted off some design specs for a FAILED supply tender to Italian Navy pilots. i would rather not publicize that!!!!

btw, the ferrari series DNA need some tweaking. i was thinking...like spyker with chronoswiss, Ferrari shld actually have a panerai clock in the car. and the watch series shld have more relevance to the ferrari brand. colour coding, material science, even simple design like speedo needle can be made similar to minute hand, crown can be made like the psuh start button etc.

[Ender]

without doubt, the unique and rich heritage of pams is one of its selling point. personally, its heritage was not a factor in me getting my pams, I just liked the way they looked
however, like rolex, omega, blancpain, longines, zenith, heuer etc there are always some models more sought after that others so you got to do your research before committing e.g those who plunged into the ferrari series probably lost monies (but then, these may become highly collectible in future who knows???)

[Nooch]

One of e reasons y Pams are expensive is they produce around 30,000 of those per year, Richmont can up production but e price will drop after tat which dun think they would want. Scarcity will make it more exp.

[darth-khips]

never been a big fan of Panerais, though i have 2 sitting in my collection.

i can see why they are attractive and some would argue good value. trying to present a more balance view, reality is richmont can easily up production, but choose to hold so. does panerai do alot of marketing?

[darth-khips]

from Wikipedia
Panerai was founded in 1860 in Florence by Giovanni Panerai (1825–1897). It later became the official supplier to the Royal Italian Navy and expanded to building precision instruments. The company is famous for its Radiomir and Luminor watches, notable for their use by Italian commando frogmen,[2] who relied upon their Panerai wristwatches to execute the sinking of Allied naval vessels in WWII.

The Florence-based watchmaker produced wrist worn diving instruments and about 300 watches, all for the Italian Marina Militare, between 1938 and 1993.[3] By that time, the company ceased to provide watches to the Marina Militare, as they were no longer cost-effective nor did they meet the naval specifications. It then moved to launch its products to the civilian market, but remained relatively obscure until the actor Sylvester Stallone spotted and bought a Panerai Luminor in a jewelry store in Rome in 1995 to wear during shooting of the film Daylight.[3] Stallone ordered a small batch of such watches with his signature on the case back, called Slytech. He offered them as gifts to friends, including Arnold Schwarzenegger. The watch gained rapid popularity, and Officine Panerai was eventually taken over by Richemont in 1997. It should however be noted that the actual Panerai were fitted with Rolex movements as worn by the Italian command frogmen. Richemont continues to actively promote ETA-movement based hommage Panerai alongside the tale of the commando frogmen.

Panerai's success with large watches has also led other companies to introduce larger watches, including Audemars Piguet, IWC, Swatch, and even Rolex.

Panerai has four major lines of watches, Historic, Contemporary, Manifattura and Special Editions. Panerai issues Special Editions every year. In 2006 it issued the 1936 California Dial Radiomir special edition, a reissue of the first Panerai model ever presented to the Italian Marina Militare. This model was limited to a run of 1936 units. As of Sept 2008, The price variation within the Contemporary collection varied from $6,200 to up to $25,500 for the solid gold Marina. (All prices in USD).

Aficionados of Panerai are known as "Paneristi", a term coined along the lines of "Ferraristi".[citation needed]

When the contract between Girard-Perregaux and Ferrari expired a new partnership was signed with Panerai to develop, manufacture and distribute watches under the Ferrari trademark. A New York representative for the watch company has called Panerai the official timekeeper to Ferrari.[4] These wristwatches, available in the US from early August 2006, have 11 models and cost between $5,300 and $26,500. Panerai Ferrari watches are divided into two collections: Granturismo and Scuderia.

Panerai issue many watches as either limited or special editions producing fewer watches than the market demands. Retailers may only receive a few limited edition pieces each per year and long waiting lists for popular models are not uncommon. [5]

[Fred_Tan]

This is really good...

If you support Singapore, go buy the Milgauss white dial... wear it with a white shirt and a white pant... super PAP!!!

Maybe I should join PAP.
But again, I "O" levels best of 5 is 30 ler, I dun think they would even wan me to clean their table in the MPS, CCC, CDC, RC & toilet..

[116520]

If you support Singapore, go buy the Milgauss white dial... wear it with a white shirt and a white pant... super PAP!!!

hahaha..i support Singapore....lol....my fave watch is the 1 that SAF issued to servicemen after R.O.D....hahahaha.....