What with all the fuss waiting around the corner for Watches & Wonders 2021, the Panerai Luminor Marina 44mm Guillaume Nery Edition PAM1122 might easily slip past your radar. Its stealthy grey aesthetics also make it a candidate for most easily missed watch of the year. You will not want to miss the Panerai Luminor Marina PAM1122 though because it is made with the Laboratorio di Idee DMLS technology. Basically that means the titanium case is 3D printed yet feels every bit as sumptuous from the manufacture in precious metals, yet also well suited to honour a superhuman diver such as Nery. In case you need an introduction, we have covered the Panerai ambassador and constant weight freediving champion right here. As for Direct Metal Laser Sintering or DMLS, it has been part of Panerai’s ultra-contemporary watchmaking for the last five years, as we have also covered right here.

The tl;dr is that DMLS shapes titanium via 3D printing, and that Nery once described diving as a journey between two breaths. There is something oddly complementary about those two points, marking the Panerai Luminor Marina PAM1122 as a harmonious creation. As a reminder of this partnership, Panerai has endowed this 300m water-resistant watch (the absence of a unidirectional bezel means this is not a dive watch, but you can most definitely swim with it) with a solid caseback engraved with Nery’s signature, a silhouette of a freediver and Panerai’s unique 70-year warranty. Behind the caseback, the in-house automatic calibre P.9010 keeps a steady beat, with three days of power reserve.

That warranty alone would have warranted coverage of this watch, which is a boutique exclusive limited to 70 pieces globally. It is a time-only watch, with small seconds and a date in the configuration Panerai is best known for. Like the PAM 1117, PAM 1118 and PAM 1119 that we previously covered, the new Nery edition is a tribute to the debut of the tritium-based substance that earned the Luminor its name, 70 years ago of course. As noted previously, a 70-year warranty is certainly longer than most of our lifespans so the lucky owners of this series will get to bequeath an heirloom with a valid warranty. If that is not a luxury, we do not know what is.

Other things to note here are the use of a special rubberized coating on the crown, bezel and signature bridge lever, and the strap made of recycled PET (a sign of bigger and better initiatives from the brand) and an additional rubber strap with luminescent Officine Panerai personalisation. The last bit is a first from Panerai. All in all, the PAM 1122 Nery edition is an important watch, but the chance to own it new might have already passed (there are only 70 after all).