Officine Panerai Books

Vintage Panerai

This book comprehensively documents five historic Panerai watches and their pasts. Complete with rare information on their original Italian and German owners, the book details the training and assignments of combat swimmers as well as the extensive array of combat swimmer’s equipment. So different are these five watches, that it is a truly fascinating journey to dive into the histories of these amazing timepieces. A book by collectors, for collectors.

21 x 21 cm, 228 pages, trilingual,
202 illustrations
Hardback jacket
Order here

There isn't exactly an over-supply of Panerai literature, however here's a selection of what is available.

The two most commonly seen books were produced by Officine Panerai themselves as promotional material. Both are written by Giampiero Negretti and follow the same 18cm square hardback format.

	The first is "Legendary Watches". Copies of this book regularly change hands for silly money on Ebay. Be aware that it is not exactly an exhausive reference, at 74 pages there's not very much space for a photographic extravaganza.
	The more recent and larger (84 pages) "Panerai Historia" (with the rather dramatic subtitle of "From The Depths Of The Sea") is in a fairly similar vein, but has perhaps more information about recent models.

After the two hardback books we fall straight into company-catalogue territory. The "Historic" and "Contemporary" flyers are just that - glossy flyers. The former shows a few pictures of the Luminor Base, Luminor Marina and Mare Nostrum, the latter has the GMT, Power Reserve and Submersibles.

At 54 pages the 2000 catalogue does provide quite a lot of information, and is well worth acquiring from your local authorised dealer. The 2001 catalogue comes in two parts. One for the regular production and the second black edition for the special editions. All in all, either of these makes an invaluable reference.

The promotional book "Il Valore delle ore" ("The Value Of Time") is a large hardback edition that you might be able to get from your authorised dealer. It documents a photo shoot of various famous Italian people wearing Panerai watches (i.e. no technical or historical information as such). You might also see the watches from this shoot floating about for sale, they are "signed" on the back by the various subjects of the photos.

Sightings of other publications include: a flyer for the 40mm models (I thought I had one but can't find it now); the 1999 catalogue and a very comprehensive-looking Japanese book called "Panerai Style" that was released recently. These seem to be sold on Ebay if you can't make it to Japan.

The 2002 catalogue has been released in two slightly differing versions. The earlier version is missing a couple of the newer models, such as the steel Radiomir and the gold Luminor. The later version includes all regular production models.