Introducing: The Panerai Lo Scienziato Luminor 1950 Tourbillon GMT Titanio 47mm

January 15, 2018

Initially launched in 2016, Panerai's Lo Scienziato Luminor 1950 Tourbillon GMT Titanio 47mm was one of the first examples in?high-end mechanical watchmaking of a timepiece's case being made with a method of 3D printing called direct metal laser sintering. Two years later, Panerai is presenting a revised edition of this watch, which still offers a wide open look at its tourbillon GMT movement. The difference between the model from 2016 and the one you see here is purely aesthetic: the blue of the hands is now matched by a blue flange and ?blue stitching of the leather strap.? Why This Watch Matters Lots of things these days are made with 3D printing, and the technique in fact enjoys widespread use in among high-end watch marques, but mainly for modeling and prototyping. Creating a finished luxury timepiece with this method was a provocative move. Panerai has had an in-house tourbillon escapement for several years now, and it's mechanism continues to be one of the more interesting escapements in contemporary watchmaking. The P.2005 caliber's balance wheel rotates perpendicular to the axis on which it vibrates, and does so in half the time it takes a standard one-minute tourbillon. You might think that such a mechanism would be fragile to the extreme, but it's not. It's one of the more robust tourbillons being made today. And if you think about it, since the escapement's motion is indexed across two axes, this does, in a way, make it a kind of multi-axis tourbillon. While this is definitely a big watch, Panerai has worked very hard to make it as light as possible. Initial Thoughts No doubt about it, this watch is really large at 47mm in diameter, a size that harkens back to the earliest Rolex-manufactured Panerai military watches. But even if the size itself is too big for my thin wrist, one thing that I really like?about this watch C aside from its unusual and robust tourbillon movement C is that lots of care has been taken in its design and manufacture to guard against unnecessary heft. From the use of a titanium case to its wafer-thin skeletonized, latticed base plate, care has been taken to keep its weight down as much as possible. The Basics Brand: PaneraiModel: Lo Scienziato ?Luminor 1950 Tourbillon GMT Titanio C 47mmReference Number: PAM00767Diameter: 47 mmCase Material: TitaniumDial Color: Skeletonized metal with blue flangeIndexes: Applied luminous indexes and cardinal hoursLume: YesWater Resistance: 100 metersStrap/Bracelet: Leather strap with blue stitching This watch adds some aesthetic updates to the original 2016 Lo Scienziato. The Movement Caliber: P.2005/TFunctions: Hours, minutes, small seconds, second time zone, GMT, power reserve indicator, tourbillonPower Reserve: 144 hoursWinding: ManualFrequency: 4 Hz (28,800 vph) Pricing & Availability Price: 139,000Limited Edition: 81 piecesAvailability: February / MarchFor more click here. From the back you can see the power reserve indicator, as well as another vantage point onto the movement's unusual architecture.