Panerai - the starting point

The inspiration to search for large vintage watches came from Panerai watches. Already in the 1930s Panerai made their first really large watches for the Royal Italian Army. They were used by divers and should be easy to read under water - thus the first watches had a diameter of 47 mm. Even by today's standards that's too large for most of us. Later came more reasonably sized watches with a perfect diameter of 44 mm. (If just they were a little bit more elegant.)

That made me think: Maybe other manufacturers in past times had made "oversized" watches that would be really wearable and feel contemporary today. A few days with Google and a whole new world had opened up.