Mint green is never built on a yellow case at any size, and at 36mm the marker set it takes is decided by the metal it does reach. The three cool-cased references, this one and the two white gold combinations, carry it with applied markers; the three Everose references carry it with Roman numerals; the three yellow ones do not carry it at all. Reference 126200 is the 36mm Datejust in stainless steel, carrying a domed bezel, and this configuration pairs a mint green dial with applied markers and a Jubilee bracelet. Mint green is one of the newer grounds in the collection and one of the few that reads as a color at arm's length without announcing itself.
The dial is mint green, a pale cool green light enough that at any distance it reads as an off-white or a pale grey, and the color only asserts itself close up or in direct light. Applied markers stand at the hours in polished steel. On a pale ground those markers have real contrast, separating by brightness rather than by shadow, which is the reverse of how they behave on champagne or silver and makes this one of the easier dials on the reference to read. It also means the markers do not have to be large to work, which keeps the dial open and lets the color occupy most of the surface rather than being broken up by the things printed on it. The case is thirty-six millimeters in steel throughout with a domed bezel, a smooth curve holding one broad reflection, and it is the only rim this reference is built with. Every other case at this size is offered with at least two, so the steel reference is the one place in the family where the outside of the watch is settled before a buyer sees it. The Jubilee is built from five-piece links with the center three polished and the outer two brushed. Against a pale dial that polished center line is the brightest element on the watch, which is unusual: on most configurations the dial or the rim takes that role, and here the bracelet does. The five-piece construction also articulates more freely than a three-piece link, so it follows the wrist rather than holding a fixed curve, and on a thirty-six millimeter case that makes the watch sit closer and smaller than the diameter suggests.
Hours, minutes, running seconds and a date changing in one step at midnight. The self-winding movement in the 36mm case holds roughly seventy hours of running time, the same reserve the 41mm cases carry, and it covers a weekend in a drawer. The date sits at three under a magnifying lens, and on a pale ground the window is close enough in value to the dial that only the frame marks the break, which is not true of the darker grounds this reference builds. Applied markers are read by position rather than by identity, so the dial is taken in as a whole and the time comes from the angle of the hands. On mint that arrangement is a fair choice, since a pale ground gives polished markers enough contrast to work in any light, and the alternative built on the Everose references is a full set of Roman numerals, which is a different answer to the same question and produces a noticeably dressier watch. The seventy hours belong to the current generation of this case and apply across every reference at the size, and they are the specification most likely to be noticed in ordinary use rather than on paper, since the movement before them would not survive a weekend untouched.
Mint green is a recent addition and it is distributed unevenly. It appears at 31mm on five references, at 36mm on six, at 41mm on four and at 42mm on one, and at none of those sizes is it built on a yellow case. That exclusion is consistent enough to be treated as a rule rather than a gap, and it is the clearest instance in the catalogue of a color being kept away from a metal on grounds of temperature alone. Where it comes two ways, at 36mm and at 41mm, the split follows the metal in the same direction each time: Everose takes Roman numerals, the cooler cases take applied markers. Within this reference it is one of seven grounds, the narrowest roster at 36mm against nine on each Everose combination, ten on each yellow one and fourteen on each white gold one, and none of the seven is set with diamonds, since no all-steel reference in the current catalogue carries a gem-set dial at any size. This reference and the two white gold combinations are also the three at this size carrying bright blue and the green gradient, so the cool cases share a color inventory the warm ones do not touch. Counting both bracelets, mint green in steel at this size exists in two watches and no more, which is the smallest field a color can occupy on this reference.
This is a colored watch that most people will not register as one. Mint is pale enough to pass for white at conversational distance, so the piece reads as a plain steel Datejust until it is looked at directly, and then it does not. That is a specific kind of appeal and it is the opposite of what the bright blue on this same reference offers. Anyone who wants the color to be obvious should take that instead. Anyone who wants the same ground with numerals will have to move to an Everose reference, since the steel one does not build it that way. And anyone who wants less brightness across the wrist should take the Oyster, where broad brushed steel replaces the polished center line and the dial becomes the lightest thing on the watch rather than the second lightest. Between the two bracelets that is the whole of the difference on this ground, and it is a larger one than it sounds.
