With a staff strength of 350 and 30 stores spread across Asia located in countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Taiwan, Cortina Watch has come a long way since its founding. It all began when founder Anthony Lim opened a watch store in Singapore on 15 December 1972 with four staff at the then Colombo Court (Colombo Court was demolished in the late 1990s to make way for Singapore’s Supreme Court).
Cortina Watch was the first dealer in Singapore for Cartier and other brands subsequently added to its portfolio during those early days were Vacheron Constantin, Piaget, Patek Philippe and Rolex, recalls Anthony Lim.In 2017, Cortina Watch celebrated not just its 45th anniversary (1972 to 2017) but its 15th year of listing on the Singapore Exchange (2002 to 2017).
At milestone anniversaries of its founding celebrated, typically once every five years, Cortina Watch will partner with watch brands to produce special commemorative limited editions. This tradition began when Cortina Watch first celebrated its 20th anniversary in 1992. In the past, Cortina had collaborated with several brands for each of its major anniversaries but for its 45th anniversary, Cortina Watch decided to partner only with Panerai.
As such, two special editions were produced for Cortina Watch to commemorate the 45th anniversary of its founding – the Luminor Due 3 Days Automatic PAM00751 in steel that is limited to 45 pieces (priced at SGD21,800) and the Luminor Due 3 Days PAM00752 in 18K red gold (priced at SGD38,800), of which only 10 were made (picture at the top of the page).
Both the Luminor Due PAM00751 and PAM00752 have the case diameter of 45mm, an apt size given that this is also Cortina Watch’s 45th anniversary. “We have not done oversized commemorative watches before. I believe the largest was previously the IWC Portuguese,” says Jeremy Lim, chief operating officer of Cortina Watch and the son of Anthony Lim. Jeremy Lim highlights that what is interesting is the fact that it was also in 1972, the year of Cortina Watch’s founding, that the “Officine Panerai” brand name was created. The branding is credited to Dino Zei, an engineer and Italian Navy man who helmed the company from 1972 to 1997.
The Luminor Due, inspired by the Luminor 1950, was first introduced in 2016 and with the thickness of 10.7mm, it is the thinnest watch that Panerai has ever manufactured. The brand highlights that as compared to the Luminor 1950 of the same size, the Luminor Due is significantly thinner and lighter thanks to the calibre’s structure and the design work.
With its thickness of 10.7mm, the Luminor Due has been reduced by almost 40% as compared to the Luminor 1950 PAM00312 which is 17.95mm thick and its distinctive design remains unchanged. However, the Luminor Due has the water-resistance of 30 metres vis-a-vis the 300 metres of the PAM00312.
Both the Luminor Due PAM00751 and PAM00752 are equipped with the Calibre P.4000/10 skeletonised in-house movement with an off-centred oscillating weight in 22K gold with the Clous de Paris decoration. The bridges feature circular brushed finishes and have gilded engraving. This skeletonised version is a significant enhancement over the Calibre P.4000 automatic movement found in the Luminor Due 3 Days Automatic PAM00674 of 2016 for example.
With four earlier Luminor Due references and with an additional four launched in 2017 plus the two Cortina Watch special editions, there are 10 models in this collection as at the time of writing.
