The One Watch That Doesn't Have to Earn Its Spot

More than ten thousand of you are now following @MidlifeCrisisWatches on Instagram as of this week. Thank you. I wanted to mark it with the watch that started all of this, which also happens to be the watch that fits my collection worst...

In the late 1990s, I was an intern at a digital agency in Manhattan. Every senior person in the company wore a Panerai. A couple of years later I landed at an ad tech shop and found the same thing waiting for me. More Panerai.

I knew nothing about watches. I did not know that the movement inside one was a pocket watch caliber with dress finishing laid over it, or that the cushion case traced back to something Rolex originally built for men the Italian Navy sent underwater at night. What I knew was that the people with the good offices wore them. That was the entire extent of my research. I decided that when I could afford a quality watch, it would be a Panerai.

It took nine years.

The receipt

I bought it when I hit a business milestone I had been chasing for most of a decade. A 2009 Radiomir Black Seal. PAM183, L-series.

Forty-five millimeters of 316L steel. Onion crown, wire lugs that need a screwdriver to release, a sandwich dial, and the OP XI inside, which is a Unitas 6497 wearing a swan neck regulator and Côtes de Genève on the bridges. A pocket watch movement dressed for dinner. Funnily, when I bought the watch, I had no idea it was a pocket watch movement.

The watch was the receipt. That was the whole idea, and in 2009 I would have told you the idea was a good one.

Photography by @midlifecrisiswatches · © 2026 · All rights reserved

Everything it does wrong

Anyone who has read this blog for more than a month knows my zone. Thirty-six to forty millimeters. Under twelve thick. Understated luxury, with craft and movement provenance carrying more weight than a spec sheet.

Line the PAM183 up against that and it loses on every count. It is five millimeters wider than my ceiling. It is thick enough to catch a cuff. The movement is an honest workhorse in nice clothes. I now own a Lange 1 and two Laurent Ferriers, which is a fairly complete answer to the question of whether my taste stayed put.

I spent a year cutting this collection from more than 140 watches down to about 40. I built a three rule filter and ran 469 days of wear data through it. Watches I liked did not make it.

This one was never in the room. It had been on loan to a family member for the last eight or nine years, which means it sat out the entire process. It has been mine for seventeen years and gone for half of them.

Keep in mind that it would never have been purged. It would not have been part of the 100 watches that have gone on to find other homes. Why? This was a milestone watch... a watch that has more meaning than most, so this one stays regardless.

What I did when it came back

I got it back recently. A watch that fails all three of my rules, absent for the better part of a decade, and I had a clean shot at listing it while I was already in a selling mood.

Instead I drove to the Panerai boutique and we picked out a new strap. The old one had taken a beating and had earned its retirement. The new one is on the watch in these photos.

Nobody straps a watch they are about to sell.

Would I buy this today? Probably not. Panerai is not getting much love from the enthusiast side of the industry right now, and I understand why. If I were walking in fresh I would come out with a Submersible. I tried a few on and liked them more than I expected to.

Two are on the list as potentials down the road. The PAM01590 in brushed steel, 42mm, white dial, P.900 inside, three days of reserve and 300 meters. That is a real summer watch for someone who actually gets in the water. The other is the PAM02164 in Goldtech, Panerai's own gold alloy, same case size and same movement, black ceramic bezel, priced the way you would expect a precious metal dive watch to be priced. Maybe next summer and maybe off Chrono24 or similar, as it'll trade lower than retail.

Look at what those two have in common. Forty-two millimeters, not forty-five. A modern automatic built in Neuchâtel instead of a pocket watch caliber in a good suit. Even when I go back to the brand that started all of this, I do not go back to the watch I bought. And that's ok.

About the photos

The sandwich dial is the reason these frames look different from most of what I post.

On a normal dial the markers sit on the surface and the light comes off them. On a sandwich dial the top plate is drilled and the lume sits underneath, so the light falls into a hole and comes back up. There is actual physical depth between those two layers, and it shows up in a macro frame in a way a printed marker never does.

The watch has not changed since 2009. Same case, same dial, same numbered back. What improved is my ability to look at it, and that happened because ten thousand of you gave me a reason to keep pointing a camera at small objects on a copy stand.

It goes back on the wrist this week. I look forward to it.

Thank you again for following @MidlifeCrisisWatches.