Original P company and present P brand
What follows is a simple explanation of the difference between the P watch, which is just a modern name brand, and the original P Company which existed since its founding in Firenze in 1860 to 1993.
The company was founded in 1860 in Firenze with the name “Giovanni P Watch Shop”. In its second era it was renamed “Swiss Watch Shop” and became an agent for companies like Rolex and Patek. The family of third era Guido’s wife was in the equipment making business and was also involved in making military equipment. With an epoch making invention he created the P Company. The invention was a torpedo sighting device that made use of radium. Rolex used the dual construction system from equipment like sighting devices, depth meters, and compasses in their dials in 1939. After that, in 1956 the model that was officially sold to the Italian navy (and the Egypt navy as well) was the P Company’s completely original revolving bevel attached round type (same type as the P Company depth meters and compasses). 30 years later, in 1986, the new prototype (round) passed the army test, but recent international stability and reduction in military spending resulted in no official orders being filed. The prototype was thus put on the civilian market as a diver’s watch.
In 1993, the same year that Maria P. (strangely, the last descendant of the P family line) passed away, P Company reduced the size of the 1939 large type 47 mm diameter cushion case to 44 mm in diameter and made a model that simplified the case that had been made from curved planes consisting of complex three dimensional and flowing lines into a straight edge dominated shape (to make mass production possible at a low cost with simple manufacturing). P Company then sold this model to the army as well as risking the fate of the company by branching out into civil sales. However, it did not sell as well as expected on the civilian market, and the company’s financial situation grew worse with reductions in military spending. However, in the world of watch lovers, the value of the Rolex made military model combat diver’s watch (a rarity collection of only 250) has always been such that even if another company’s gears are inside a smaller version of the watch, many people are of the opinion that the legend of the P Company will still have more than enough name value as a “brand”.
In 1997 the group currently known as the Richemont Group (Cartier’s group) bought out the P Company, which was suffering from a broken family line and a mortal blow to its financial reserves. This new P Brand (without the superior technique that the old P Company had developed) in 1997 made a model with Rolex “Caliber 618” movement (They said, “we found this movement in P Company’s attic,” but the real facts are unknown. Doubt is cast upon this because a technician from the old P Company said that this particular Rolex movement was limited to 250 pieces. Even this was not enough pieces, so they had to use movements from Angelus. Thus, I would say that this tale of finding 60 some odd pieces lying around is a little bit odd. The “618” is a pocket watch movement, so if you collect pocket watches with the same movements in them, you can use those. And then all you have to do is rebuild them and you have a new product). For the shape, they decreased the size of the 1938 Rolex wire leg case Ref.3646 from 47 mm in diameter to 45 mm in diameter.
The watch released at the Basel Fair by P Brand, which had not been known outside the boundaries of the world of watch fans, was a strategic model designed to gather the attention of the watch industry (as well as the new watch mania) that, in order to become known outside watch fan circles intentionally used Rolex movement and rode upon the Rolex name.
1998 saw the release of a model with the exact same design as the model which the old P Company had staked its future upon (1993 44 mm diameter simplified case). The movement was a Unitus 6497. Unfortunately, instead of a dual construction dial, the illumination was simply applied on the index by standard printing. After this the new P Brand produced a variety of different watches (chrono and limited models), but to this day have yet to produce a model that has the equivalent functionality as the original (old P Company’s technology and policies). Their basic line of thought is given to precious metal type watches, so the watches stand out only as decorative pieces.
Reported last year at the Basel Fair was a model with only a few pieces received though regular channels within Japan, and case shape and the original size of 47 mm in diameter were the same as the Rolex model. But the essential antimagnetic inner case was not inserted (just a skeleton again!).
The dial was a duel construction system dial, but the base dial didn’t use antimagnetic material. The most depressing element was the dial index. The 12, 3, 6, and 9 characters were incredibly small for such a large dial face, throwing off the balance and spoiling what could have been a good design. It was unthinkable that a sensitive Italian designer could have created this layout. Also, the needle shape was different from the original. All this came to a fixed Japanese price of \880,000, next to premiere attached items of over \1,000,000. I calculated this to have a base production cost of maybe 5% (1/20) of the price. The remaining 95% would probably go towards profit and the brand name.
* Shiny models with diamonds and such have quite the mark up. They easily get in the range of at least 1/30. What a get rich scheme.
Thank you for reading such a long passage. Making the “Marina Militare” at its original size has been my dream since I started my own original watch brand, R.X.W. (formerly PRO-LEX). This project has been 5 years in the planning and has taken 1 year to produce. I can say with confidence that the splendor of this model makes having only one piece available for the 20th anniversary of R.X.W. a unique pleasure.
May 25, 2003
Ginza KEN TRADING Co., Ltd.
President/ Takeshi Sato
