Sandwich dial what is

A sandwich dial is just that—two or more stacked layers of metal that provide a subtle 3D design without additional height or complexity. While on a traditional dial, lume is applied to the upper surfaces, sandwich dials carry lume on the lower surface. Here you can see the lower dial. The back side carries dial feet which hold it against the movement, and the front side contains the lume and adhesive to keep it all flat.

The top side of the dial features cutouts for the hour markers, which allow the lume to shine through the apertures. Our sandwich dials also include a raised rehaut, or flange, which typically holds the printing for the minute track. All together, the sandwich dial allows for a flat, yet 3-dimensional design. Even though it also has perforated indices and numerals, its perforations are slightly smaller. This is intentionally designed to allow users to see the filled bottom dial. While most modern watches do not need many luminous materials these days, sandwich dials have evolved superbly.

They have proven to be iconic design elements included in some high-end watches nowadays. As brands strive to outperform each other in a highly competitive watch market, many watch brands have included sandwich dials in their watches to make a statement not very common in the watch industry. While Panerai still remains the grandfather of the sandwich construction, many watch brands are jumping on the sandwich dial trend, with big names like Oak and Oscar releasing the Burnham model, which featured a sandwich dial.

While their design is breathtaking, they experimented with an extra hyphen which gave their sandwich dial a more characteristic look. More so, the inner stenciled circle on their sandwich dial is one of a kind. Another famous watch brand that is experimenting with sandwich dials nowadays is the Seiko brand.

With their recent Map Meter model, Seiko gave sandwich enthusiasts a watch they can be proud of. Thanks to the partnership with the Rolex group and other famous watch brands, Panerai launched some of the finest timepieces ever to grace the watch industry. Even though their timepieces are extremely rare, they are also very collectible especially considering that they infuse the combined expertise of Rolex and Panerai in their watches.

While Rolex is famous for designing watches with more traditional appeal, Panerai is renowned for its contemporary designs and oversized cases. Without mincing words, Panerai watches are an excellent investment. Early Panerai sandwich dials used three layers, but more recently, they have adopted the more common two-layer construction. Sandwich dials are very distinct and easily recognized because the two seperate disks create a cut-out stencil effect.

The bottom layer of the two discs has the luminescent material in the depressed indexes. The top layer has the cut-outs for the luminescence to clearly shine through. Now, Panerai uses Super-LumiNova which is non-reactive. Panerai has moved away from sandwich dials on most of their current watches and decided to use this technique for special releases instead.

For instance, this technique reappeared with their more recent release of the Pam and which we will explore for our next Panerai article so stay tuned.