Lot 26

Attributed to Officine Panerai, 52,5 x 65 mm, circa 1944
Compass for combat divers of the German Navy („Kriegsmarine")
Case: brass with fixed strap lugs, six-fold screwed transparent Plexiglas dome with bearing line. Screwed filler hole in the centre of the dome for the damping fluid (kerosene). Original black leather band, 23 mm wide, 150/60 mm long, with aluminium rivets and pin buckle. Dial: Compass rose, approx. 31 mm in diameter, transparent Plexiglas with the four cardinal directions N - O - S - W, four marking arrows (45 Grad) and eight additional marker points (22,5 Grad). 27 mm high, weight without damping fluid 91 grammes.

Wrist compasses dating to World War II are considered very rare among the Panerai collectors, especially with regard to the already fairly small number of Panerai watches from this period that are known. An identical compass with a screwed filler hole in the centre of the dome is described in "Die Referenzen" by Ralf Ehlers & Volker Wiegmann on pages 672-675 (available in 2016).
Kindly supported by Ralf Ehlers & Volker Wiegmann, www.vintagepanerai.com, the reference site for classic Panerai watches.

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