It happens rarely, and probably only in Italy, that you can spot a Vintage Panerai on a wrist “in the wild”. So it was when we visited the Museo Technico Navale (“Arsenale”) in La Spezia during the X Meeting Club Panerai.

Our museum guide was wearing a stunning Ref. 6152/1 with “Marina Militare” dial, Rolex movement, double pencil hands (sharp heads). The caseback bears a rare S.M.Z M.M. matriculation number. Fantastic piece – one more for our database!

Today’s extract out of our database is a 6152/1 watch. It holds the Rolex Cal. 618 / Type 4 movement (typical for 6152/1 watches), which has 17 Jewels (bridge engraved “17 Rubis”) and Incabloc shock protection. The crown protection device bears an engraved “1” on its backside.

Panerai collectors call this kind of watches “The Luminor Base” because of the typo on the dial, the missing second hand (only 2 hands) and the crown protecting device, which is one of the main design elements that makes a Panerai watch “different” to many other watches.

Powered with the Rolex movement, this type of vintage Panerai stands for the “Base” version without small second (modern Panerai watches of ref. PAM2, PAM112 and PAM176).

The title “Luminor Marina” (modern Panerai watches of ref. PAM1, PAM111, PAM177) has its root in the vintage 6152/1 watches (see the 6152/1 on the left), which are powered by Angelus movements (Cal. 240) with the typical small second function. They symbolize “The Luminor Marina” as version with 3 hands, that is hours, minutes and small second.

A fellow collector has provided detailled information of his ref. 6152/1 with Angelus movement for our database.

The Angelus movement is signed JUIN 61, which is matching our files perfectly. It comes with a very rare dial version: as most of the known 6152/1 Angelus watches have a “Luminor Panerai” dial, the dial of this watch is engraved “Marina Militare”.

The massive Rolex caseback bears matriculation numbers of the italian navy. Together with this caseback, there is also a 2nd display caseback, signed “Officine Panerai Brevettato”.

To keep the owners privacy, we don’t publish the complete case number, which we keep confidential in our database. You can read more about this type of vintage Panerai watches in our 2nd book “Vintage Panerai – The References” (chapter VI.III).

Some details of vintage Panerai watches have received a nickname or title by collectors. Sometimes a description of a Panerai watch can hold confusing elements (nicknames), which sounds even funny.

A good example are the different shape of hands used in 6152/1 watches: they are named “single pencil” or “double pencil” hands. In the illustration you can find two different shapes of both kind of hands. Differences are visible in small details (width, lenght, shape of heads).

The “single pencil” shape of hands can be found often in watches with Angelus movements (illustration 1st row – short and long version). There exist various versions of these hands made of brass. The “double pencil” shape is typical for 6152/1 watches with Rolex movements. Some appear with very “sharp” heads (2nd row, right) if compared with the regular head shape (illustration 2nd row, left).

An interesting fact is at watches from the reference 6152/1, that there is no relationship between Rolex case number (engraved between the lugs) and the M.M. matriculation numbers, which are engraved on the caseback. Today we believe that the numbered watch cases (or entire watches) have been mixed after they were delivered (if they ever came in a matching number row out of Rolex) to their customer.

Good examples of this non-present relationship are 6152/1 watches 124527 (caseback engraved M.M. 023) and 124766 (caseback engraved M.M. 025). As the gap between 023 and 025 is only 1, the cases are 239 numbers away from each other.

Watch 124822 comes with engraved M.M. 066 caseback. Its 41 numbers higher than M.M.025, while their cases are 56 numbers away from each other.

The reason might be simple: caseback engravings (to use as a military matriculation number) may have been done by the customer and not by Panerai. What we find today let us think so. Additional, you can find no relationship on further details: dial versions, movement versions (Angelus 240 or Rolex 618), with or without crown protectors…

Since we have crossed the closing line of our 2nd book on april 1st 2009, we are still on the hunt for new, yet unknown datings on Angelus movements, which have been used in vintage Panerai watches.

Until today we know three different datings: 12.55 (in GPF 2/56), MAI.61 (in 6152/1 watches, find below the location at the movement in the red circle) and JUIN.61 (in 3646 and 6152/1 watches). It will be interesting to see further datings in the future, also because it can answer questions about the type of decoration and engraving on the bridges of the Angelus movements, which we know in different versions.

By collecting facts and details of today existing watches, we have continued to increase the entries in our database with more than 250 (1.1.2010) watches so far.

Beside case numbers and dial versions, we add further details, which allow us to create graphics of the files, which is helpful for our research and a great addition next to informations in the usual way as text and numbers.