Review of Pagani's explorer homage

Several reviewers on youtube proclaim that the PD-1723 is an Air-King homage. It is not, it much better matches the Explorer. There is a variant of the Air-King that is also a 3-digit watch, but that has wider digits, and indeed Pagani had made a homage to that watch too, the PD-1692. That 4 watch reviewers on youtube proclaim a likeness to the Air-King has probably more to do with the horse's mouth that supplied them with the watch than their judgement.

Anyway, the PD-1723, while clearly inspired by the Explorer, is not a clone, it has its own distinctive design. The indices are not the bars of the Explorer, but dagger-shaped and overall the dial is a bit more blingy. These style elements ever so slightly point you in the direction that this is an Asian watch.

The watch comes in three colour options: white, yellow or black dial, and all of those have these gold-coloured markers and hands. All of these are available on either a bracelet or a leather strap, with a spare NATO thrown in for good measure.

The spectacular dial is the star of the show, with the indices happily catching any lightbeam that dares come near them, and the sapphire crystal dial adds intrigue by distorting the look when you look at the dial from an angle. The finishing looks as good as any I have seen.

The applied digits and the 12 o'clock marker are lumed, but the hands... Well, in one youtube video there was a lume test and the hands showed having lume, but rather pathetic one. I don't have a UV lamp for such tests, and I could not detect any lume on the hands whatsoever.

The case is mostly polished, except for the lugs: their under- and overside are brushed.

As a non-bracelet-person I ordered mine with a leather band. That was OK, not great, but it came with a deployment clasp rather than a buckle. That wore uncomfortable enough to replace it with a buckled strap after a few days. I suspect how comfy the clasp is for you would depend on your wrist size.

The product listing (and also concrete watches reviewed by youtubers) showed a proud but nerdy pt5000 on the dial and the case back. Mine did not do that: instead of "PT5000" it merely said "Automatic"; on the caseback it didn't mention the PT5000 either, but instead we have here a sapphire sandwich with view of the movement. I am not enough of an expert to confirm its pt5000-ness, but my timegrapher detected a 28,800 beat movement (which the pt5000 is). While I do not abhor the design change as such I do have an issue that there was such a change, I don't want a mismatch between catalogue and reality, so I reduced the design score in the evaluation.

Price: I got mine during the summer sale for £150, normal price is about £180.