Panerai
Giovanni Panerai was born in 1825 and opened up his first watch shop in Florence, Italy in 1860. Giovanni's grandson Guido Panerai joined the business and expanded the shop when he took over his wife's family business, a mechanical workshop. During that time Guido added radium to gun sites and became the official supplier for the Royal Italian Navy at the time (circa 1915). The original watches were actually designed and manufactured by Rolex using pocket watch movement made by Cortebert then around 1935 the wrist-worn diving watches began production with around 1,600 watches. Most of the original watches to the Italian Marina Militare all of which were made by Rolex and G. Panerai e Figlio produced only the dials. These dials contained the Radiomir that Panerai had made famous on the scopes of guns until in 1965 when tritium began to be used for safety. In 1993 Panerai moved to launch its products in the civilian market and was acquired by Richemonte. Following its acquisition of Panerai, Richemont repositioned Panerai as a luxury watch brand.
