I am pretty much a lazy person & dislike manual winding watches & my nature of work requires me to travel around pretty often,having collected almost the entire range of rolex gmt master(only their steel range),it was a very fun & cool learning experience & the toughest part was to own them all with papers I will write about them someday.........
As for now I felt I need a change so I moved on & started collecting Panerai Luminor GMTs somewhere in 1998,from the early pam 23A,29B,63C to 88D
I will write about firstly the pam 23A,the earliest of the 4 models.This series has a total of 1500 pieces,armed with CAL.2893/2, 42 hours power reserved,a chronometer movement.The rest of the technical stuff u can read about it on paneristi.com......I have this piece for about 10 years now.
The highlight of the watch besides its resale value are actually its' tritium dial which has now aged to become orangy yellow colour & the different movement compared to the pam 88D,the hands are also "blacken",it has already broken the $12k mark in the resale market currently.
But I actully prefer the superluminova markings of the later pam 29B,pam63C & pam 88D,as for the blacken hands I found them sharper & very military looking,most important able to withstand aging unlike the pam88.Their hands seems to have aging & spotting problem,may be other pam 88 owners will care to share on this topic......
The case of the pam 23A,29B &63C are the same,however they are slightly thinner than that of the currently produced pam 88.Between ETA 2893-2 & Val.7750 which is used in the pam88 i prefer the earlier as val.7750 is a chronograph movement & servicing is very costly.But it adds charactor on to the Luminor's family,which is the sub-second hand at the 9 o'clock.This makes the pam88 the best looking child among the family.
The sweeping centre second hand is 1 of the main noticable difference compared to the current pam88,as well as the markings on the bezel .I dislike the markings on the bezel as it could be removed when u polished the watch case..........so among the 4 the pam 63C & pam 88 do not have this problem.
I wrote little about the pam 29B,among the 4 models the 29B has the nicest dial(Tuxedo Dial & superluminova markings)! I believed only 750/1500 comes with this.I am still hunting for a pam29A with tritium dial !!!
Well it is a good thing that all 3 are discontinued(pam23,pam29 & pam63) ,the production of the pam 88 has been running for 7 years liao ! And still going strong......................Lastly I hope Panerai Luminor gmt watch lovers(newbie)/collectors will find this writting/information useful & helpful,thanks for reading.............these are just my personal findings & u do not have to agree with me !
