The “Panerai Only” auction held in Paris on the 8th of December at Artcurial ended with proceeds of more than one million euros and it was entirely devoted to the historic watches of Officine Panerai, the Florentine high quality sports watchmaker and historic supplier to the Italian Navy.
The single-make watch auction consisted of about 100 models, divided into three sections:
Vintage (1930-1950), “Pre-Vendome” (1993-1997) and “Vendome” (1997 to the present).
In the course of the auction two world records were broken by two models of great importance in
the history of Officine Panerai. The first was an extremely rare “Radiomir Egiziano”, the diver’s watch made in 1956 for the Egyptian Navy. Highly regarded by enthusiasts for its iconic design and its impressive size (the diameter of the case is 60mm), it was sold for 125,800 euros (US$155,000), beating the previous record price for this model.
Egyptian Navy issued Radiomir in a whopping 60mm with a Angelus Cal.240 SF 8 Day hand wound movement
The other world record was broken by a Radiomir PAM00021, a 1997 special edition in platinum, with a case design extremely faithful to that of the watch created by Officine Panerai for the frogmen of the Royal Italian Navy in 1938. This highly coveted Special Edition, fitted with a vintage Rolex movement, like many historic Panerai models, was sold for 103,500 euros (US$127,000).
PAM 00021: The first Panerai special edition featuring a vintage hand wound Rolex movement.
Two other vintage models, a Luminor and a Marina Militare, both with Rolex movements, each made over 120,000 euros, well above the initial auction estimates, while a Luminor 1950 8 Days(PAM00203), a Special Edition of 2005 with an Angelus eight-day mechanical movement, was sold for about 70,000 euros (more than US$85,000).
