Silver-toned is the rose gold answer to a dial that steel gets in a different form. Across the 37 mm Royal Oak line the plain steel references carry a silver-toned dial only in anniversary form, and in the diamond-set tier the colour moves to rose gold entirely, where it sits alongside Bleu nuit nuage 50 and khaki green. That makes this reference the meeting point of the collection's two most conservative choices, a pale neutral dial and a warm precious case, with a set bezel supplying the only element that is neither. Silver-toned with rose gold markers is also the oldest-looking combination available in the size. Nothing about it is tied to the moment the anniversary programme was designed, which is an unusual quality in a watch built to mark a specific year, and it is the reason this reference reads as a dress watch where the light blue and khaki green versions read as contemporary ones.
The case is 37 mm across and 9.1 mm thick in rose gold, with the octagonal bezel set with diamonds. The height is identical to the plain 37 mm reference of the same generation, because setting the bezel uses metal that was already there, where the fully gem-set version of the same case reaches 10 mm since its dial and bracelet require channels cut throughout. The eight hexagonal screw positions survive and the run of stones is built around them rather than through them. The dial is silver-toned with the Grande Tapisserie pattern, the larger of the two grids the collection uses. On a pale ground the tapisserie reads as fine relief rather than as shadow, since there is no dark field for the recesses to fall into, and the grid is picked out only by the difference between the brushed square tops and their cut edges. That is a more demanding surface to produce than a dark one, because inconsistency shows where black would have hidden it. Rose gold applied hour-markers and Royal Oak hands sit above it, and they are the only warm elements on the dial itself. The bracelet is integrated rose gold, tapering from the case with alternating brushed and polished surfaces, and closes on an AP folding clasp. Diamonds against rose gold read softer than against steel, since both return warm light, so the bezel here is a texture rather than a contrast.
The function set is hours, minutes, centre seconds and a date. That is one function more than the fully gem-set references in this size carry, since those omit the date rather than cut an aperture through a continuous stone dial. Here the dial is metal, the window costs nothing, and the reference keeps the complication the collection has fitted since 1972. Centre seconds keeps the three hands on one axis. The rose gold markers against a silver-toned field give moderate rather than strong contrast, which is characteristic of any pale dial with warm metal on it, and the applied markers do most of the legibility work. The bezel setting sits outside the dial entirely.
The Royal Oak is the collection Audemars Piguet is built on, and the 37 mm anniversary references step through three degrees of setting. The plain reference is unset at 9.1 mm, this reference sets the bezel and leaves the dial alone at the same height, and the fully gem-set reference sets dial, bezel and bracelet in a single coloured stone and reaches 10 mm. In the diamond-set tier the rose gold references run silver-toned, Bleu nuit nuage 50 and khaki green, while the steel references run light blue, Bleu nuit nuage 50 and grey, so Bleu nuit nuage 50 is the only dial crossing both metals. Each of the six anniversary references is matched by a standard-catalogue counterpart carrying the same dial without the anniversary designation.
This reference suits a collector who wants a Royal Oak that could pass for a dress watch. Silver-toned on rose gold with a set bezel is the version of the 37 mm case that sits most comfortably under a cuff and least obviously in the sports-watch tradition the model comes from, and the softness of diamonds against warm metal reinforces that rather than working against it. It appeals to someone who has decided against steel and against a coloured dial, which narrows the field considerably, and to someone who wants the setting to be discovered rather than announced. Among the three rose gold dials in the tier it is the only one that is not a colour, which puts it in direct opposition to the khaki green reference and at one remove from the Bleu nuit nuage 50 version. Keeping the date and the applied markers also leaves it more usable than the fully gem-set references at the same size. The anniversary designation ties production to the occasion rather than to an open catalogue run.
