Time Without End

The luxury watches featured here have nothing to prove. The decades gone by validate their popularity and iconic status

- Salil Panchal

/ Officine Panerai Radiomir 1940 3 Days Acciaio

The 2017 rendition of the Radiomir 1940 is a modern variant of the iconic watch from Officine Panerai with a unique green dial. The Italian watchmaker historically supplied the Italian navy and specialist diving corps with precision instruments, which had the radium-based powder, Radiomir, that made the dials of sighting instruments and watches luminous.

This watch is elegant and the lugs are integrated with the case, which is made from a solid block of stainless steel as done in 1940, when the navy’s new norms required divers to remain underwater for longer and their watches had to be more resistant to tension.

Radiomir 1940 has become one of Officine Panerai’s most popular collections. Variations to the original have come in 1956, 1993, 2012 and 2016. As with the original (left), the indicators on the green dial are luminous and have conspicuous large markings. The diameter of this watch is 47 mm, a tribute to the original Panerai. The watch comes with a three-day power reserve and is water resistant to a depth of 100 meters.

/ A lange & Söhne 1815 Annual calendar

This was one of the watches featured at the SIHH 2017, a conclave of watchmakers in Geneva. 1815 stands for the birth year of Ferdinand Adolph Lange, who established Germany’s precision watchmaking industry in Glashütte. The 1815 is possibly the most important, and one of the longest running, product lines in Lange’s watchmaking history, evoking memories of the first products—pocket watches that Lange started to manufacture in 1845.