Panerai Luminor Destro 8 Day PAM 1655 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 Ossow, at the1916company.com for purchase pricing and availability questions concerning this watch. Today, we're discussing a 2024 model year launch from Panerai. This is the Panerai Luminor Destro PAM 1655, an old school Alessandro Bettorini style case, device protecting the crown, sandwich dial, and a manual wind eight day movement. In some ways, it's like a lefty variant of the PAM 590. Of course, this watch is a Destro, so right-handed use. The idea, I suppose, is that you would wear it on your right hand as a natural lefty. In my experience, all Panerai watches are effectively ambidextrous. You can wear this on either wrist. It's just a matter of which style do you prefer. Do you prefer right-handed crowns or left-handed crowns? I'll demonstrate that now. In stainless steel, the watch is a classical 44 millimeters in diameter. Again, this is not the Luminor 1950 or the larger 47 millimeter size. In terms of profile, it's actually thinner than you'd think because of the manual wind movement. So, 13.6 millimeters thick, 53.5 lug to lug, and a 24 millimeter spacing between the lugs. We'll throw this on my wrist, which is 16 centimeters in circumference. This is why I say it's ambidextrous. What problem could I possibly get into here? Now, my wrist can bend up, but that would be more of a problem with the crown at three o'clock than nine o'clock. So, as a natural righty wearing this on my left hand, it's perfect. I'd say this is probably the limit here. As you can see, the lugs are over the edge of my wrist a bit. That's okay with a Panerai if it's a bit too large. If it's much too large, there are smaller cases, but this is actually pretty cool. And most people are not going to hold it against you for wearing a Panerai or a big pilot's watch that's slightly larger than it should be on your wrist. That's always been the look. It's a tool watch. Legibility is king and bigger is better in that regard. Thinner than you would expect. So, under 14 millimeters with a sloped bezel, maybe the crown guard could create some problems with a tight sleeve, but most jackets are going to run right up over this and down the barrel one more time where you can see it's just a little bit too big, but not too, too big. Okay. Strap, a sort of minimally tanned velvety, sort of sanded feel with a lot of calfskin, thick cut, bolstered. You can see it's got a folded edge, a monotone stitch, calfskin on the bottom. It's been worn a little bit, but there is no gouging on the top with the exception of a little bit of abrasion. So, it's a Panerai factory strap in very good, but not perfect condition. Taking a quick look now at the buckle, this is the well-known brushed trapezoidal pin buckle. This is a steel watch. It has a matching steel buckle. And then this is a more upscale Panerai. It's not bare bones. As you can see, it's got the 300 meter case, screwed in case back, and then screws and bars fixing the strap to the case. So, no spring bars here. If you're Paneristi, you already have the tools at home to swap straps using your jeweler's screwdriver. And this is a very secure system that doesn't rely on spring bars, which can age improperly seat when you put them in or even fail outright. Taking a quick look, you can see that even the buckle is fixed to the strap using screws and bars. So, we've got a lot of security. Device protecting the crown, albeit inverted. A design Panerai created in the forties and implemented in the fifties back in the era when it made combat watches for the Italian Navy and its allies. The idea was that back when Rolex made the Panerai cases, they were oyster crowns, oyster cases, because they were manual wind watches. You were constantly screwing crown in and out to set and wind them. So, that would wear out the stem tube assembly and the seal. So, Panerai came up with this idea for subsequent cases where you've got a cam and the cam compresses the crown. So, now it's water resistant to 300 meters. Now it's not. By not threading through the seal, you preserve it. Now I can wind. If I wish, I can pull it out. I can set. Easy to do. Also worth mentioning, more protection than a shouldered crown guard because nothing can hit the crown. A shouldered crown guard still leaves you vulnerable to a perpendicular hit. Not here. Super iconic. You know what brand, you know what model instantly. Other advantages, it's hard to jump in the water with an unlocked crown because that's hard to I also find that it's easier to operate the locking lever when your hands are wet or sweaty or gloved for swimming than it is to operate a screw-down crown, which can get tight, fiddly, and hard to work with. This is all brushed. The rest of the case is polished, as you can see. When I talk about the Bettorini case, I talk about Italian machinist Alessandro Bettorini, who initially was part of the Italian Panerai concern and was charged with making a design for what were at the time called, and I regret the name, but this is what they were called Replica of Ficine Panerais. They wanted to create something that was civilian sold, made by Panerai, but essentially a replica of the watches they made for the armed forces. And so in 1993, the Luminor, the Luminor Marina, and the Mare Nostrum were unveiled as the first three civilian issue Panerai watches. Bettorini's case was a little bit more severe and angular than the actual combat watches. And what is being approximated here is the, I guess it's the 6152 combat watches of the 1950s, which had this crown guard. Luminor was a paint used that was less hazardous and radioactive than the previous Radiomir paint. In Panerai history, Radiomir was a luminescent paint based on radium, and Luminor, which was subsequent to that in the 50s, 60s, and so on, was a luminescent paint that I believe was based on tritium, so less hazardous. And we do have a little bit of a Fottina here, so it's designed to echo what a vintage Panerai watch, I mean 50s and 60s Panerai watch, would have looked like had it aged to the present day. So we have that Fottina black matte dial, eight days in Italian, because these watches are made in Switzerland today, but the heritage is, I would say Swiss Italian, because Rolex was always part of that equation in the early days. But you can see it's a stencil dial. So sandwich dial is a stencil with the numerals and indices on top of a solid luminescent disc. So you can see all these indices, they have height to them. The numerals have height to them. Turn the light off and you can see why Panerai watches past and present are renowned for luminescence. Easy to read, open nine, open six, love the look. Even the small seconds is legible. Easy to read day or night. We do have a hacking seconds function, so you can stop the seconds hand, set the watch precisely to a reference time, turn it all over, AA, Panerai millisimation and alphanumeric rolled over, I believe in 2024, the year this model was launched and AA represents 2024. And we have a 300 meter case, more recent Panerai watches, not made to the same standards as the past, often feature 30 meter or 100 meter cases. This is a less compromised model. It's still quite robust in that regard. The movement is large. It's caliber P5000. It's a movement that was designed for Panerai to use twin barrels, manual wind, eight day power reserve, three Hertz beat rate, 21 Joules. It is a large pocket watch style movement with lateral set nation and an enormous mono bridge, just like the vintage Rolex Coda bear pocket watch movements used in the thirties and the forties, just like the Angeles S240 movements used from the fifties onward. It's got that look to it. It's also got a machined, but handsome bevel polished screw heads. And again, the three Hertz beat rate, 21 Joules, a big caliber, just like a pocket watch movement would be. This one has a diameter of over 35 millimeters. So deeply impressive in terms of presence, it's 35.7 millimeters. So it nicely fills this case back. And again, twin barrels with an eight day power reserve. So quite a bit of endurance. You only need to wind it once a week to keep it going. Lots of fun, an iconic piece and a little bit different with a left-hand crown. So reach out to team also at the1916company.com for purchase and pricing details.