The Laings Journal
With so many brands touting ever more complicated watches each year, often at the expense of legibility and function, it takes a brave brand to offer such a seemingly simple watch as the Panerai PAM425 SLC. Like most of my favourite watches however, despite appearing simple at first glance, the PAM425 SLC contains a wealth of details and history that make it much more interesting to those willing to look beyond the initial simplistic appearance.
Having supplied the Royal Italian Navy with a variety of precision instruments, including watches, since the late 19th century Panerai was well versed in knowing what was required in a military issue watch. The PAM425 is based on a prototype watch from 1936 when Panerai were experimenting with various dial displays to see which dial provided the best legibility for naval issue watches. This watch features dots and dashes whilst its sister watch, the PAM424, features both Roman and Arabic numerals.
Most watch dials are a single plate that have some luminous material applied for legibility in the dark but the Panerai features a sandwich construction where a solid base plate is covered with a layer of Super-LumiNova which is visible through the apertures that are cut into the upper plate. The dial also features a relief engraving of a Siluro a Lento Corsa (SLC), a slow speed manned torpedo that was developed at the turn of the 20th century but rarely used due to the difficulty of their controls. The frogmen who were trained to use the SLCs nicknamed them pigs because they were so difficult to steer and as such any Panerai with this relief engraving is said to have a ‘pig’ dial.
A further engraving of the letters SLC appears on the rehaut between the dial and the curved sapphire crystal at the 12 O’clock position. For such a minimalistic dial there is in fact a lot going on. All of these details along with the historic Radiomir case with its large cushion shape, wire lugs, and onion shaped crown that winds the beautiful in-house P3000 3 day movement are why the Panerai PAM425 SLC is one of my favourite watches.