The most widely built set dial in the range sits here in one of the least widely built cases. Silver with twelve diamonds appears on sixteen of the seventeen references at this size, every one of them in the identical arrangement, and the only reference declining it is the plain steel watch that sets nothing at all. Solid Everose gold, by contrast, is built on two references at this diameter and no more. Reference 278275 is the 31mm Datejust in Everose gold, carrying a fluted bezel, and this configuration pairs a silver dial set with twelve diamonds in gold settings, with no numerals on it, and a President bracelet.
The case is solid Everose gold with the fluted bezel cut into the metal rather than applied as a separate ring. The dial is a pale silver with an even finish holding one brightness rather than sweeping between values, which is the correct ground under a ring of stones because a moving surface would compete with them. Twelve round diamonds sit at the hours in gold settings matched to the case. On this reference the mounts do something particular: the case is Everose rather than yellow, so the gold around each stone is distinctly pink against a cool silver ground, and each diamond arrives inside a small warm frame visible as a separate element rather than disappearing into the dial. On the yellow references the same setting reads as a single warm ring; here it reads as twelve pink points with white centers. The President bracelet is semi-circular three-piece links in the same gold, rounded across their width, and it is the only bracelet this reference offers, since none of the five solid gold Datejusts at this size is built with a Jubilee or an Oyster. Silver also takes a faint cast from the metal around it, so the ground ends up slightly warmer here than the same dial would be in a cool case, and closer to champagne than a buyer expects from the name. Between that and the pink mounts, a silver dial in Everose is measurably a different object from a silver dial in white gold, even though the catalogue gives both the same name and the same twelve stones.
Hours, minutes, running seconds and a date advancing in a single step at midnight. The self-winding movement in the 31mm case holds roughly fifty-five hours of running time, matching the 28mm references rather than the 36mm ones, which run a larger movement of their own. Nothing else has been added to the watch, and the dial reflects that in turn: an unbroken ring of markers works only while it stays unbroken, and the date window at three is the single interruption the layout has to absorb. On a pale ground that window is more visible than on a dark one, since the disc and the ground are close in value but the frame is not. Reading the watch depends entirely on position, because a diamond in a gold mount carries no information about which hour it stands at, and a stone gives the eye less to align on than an applied baton would. The practical result is that the time registers a fraction more slowly here than on the numeral dials the reference builds, and the watch registers as jewelry a fraction more quickly. That trade is the entire decision behind this face. It is also the reason the ground is built so widely: a dial that reads as jewelry first and as a timekeeper second is what most buyers of a set watch are looking for, and silver is the ground that does it with the least insistence.
Silver set with diamonds changes arrangement at every size the catalogue makes it in. At 28mm it comes with twelve settings, or with twelve settings and a gold Roman nine carrying eight stones. At 31mm it comes with twelve settings on sixteen references, or with an oversized six on the six yellow ones. At 36mm the name covers ten baguette-cut stones on the Day-Date and a pair of gold numerals at six and nine set with twenty-four diamonds on the Datejust, and at 40mm it returns to the ten baguettes. One name, at least five dials, and only the reference number to separate them, which makes silver the ground where a listing description is least informative on its own. Within this reference it is one of nine grounds across eleven configurations, seven of them set, and it is one of only three grounds built on all three solid gold references at this size, the others being plain white and the white shell. Everything else on those three rosters divides by case temperature, so silver, white and the shell are the three dials a buyer can compare directly across all three gold metals at this size. Silver is one of four grounds at this reference offered only in set form, and it takes diamond hour markers in gold settings, the treatment chocolate, rose and mother-of-pearl also carry.
This is the most conventional set dial the reference builds and the one that would look unremarkable in any other metal. What makes it worth attention here is the case: an even ring of twelve stones is the standard gem-set Datejust dial, and putting it in solid Everose gold is not a standard thing to do, since only two references at this size are built in the alloy at all. The result is a familiar face in an unfamiliar watch. Anyone who wants the dial to have a focal point should take the aubergine or the slate, both of which carry the oversized six on this reference. Anyone who wants the ground to match the case should take the rose set, which is the same twelve settings on a warm dial. And anyone who wants the stones at the rim should take 278285RBR, where this same ring sits under a second one and the watch stops being understated altogether.
