Two grounds on this reference take the same twelve stones and get entirely different results. Champagne and bright black both replace their markers with diamonds set into gold surrounds, and on champagne the arrangement is a struggle: the dial is returning light as hard as the stones are, and the separation has to come from the character of the reflection rather than from any difference in brightness. On black nothing competes. The ground gives back almost nothing, so the same twelve stones read at the widest separation the reference achieves, and the setting looks effortless in a way the champagne version has to work for. Identical arrangement, opposite difficulty. It is the clearest demonstration the reference offers that a setting is not a fixed quantity of decoration but a relationship between stones and whatever they have been placed on, and that the same specification can be easy or demanding depending on a decision made elsewhere on the dial.
Bright black is a lacquered surface with a hard reflective finish rather than a matte one, and the distinction carries the dial. A matte ground would absorb light and leave the stones floating on a dead field; this one returns light from a smooth surface, so the black holds depth and reflections travel across it as the wrist turns while the markers stay fixed. The stones are set into gold surrounds, and on a dark ground those surrounds are visible in a way they are not on champagne, where they vanish into the dial entirely. Here each marker reads as a warm ring with a cool center, which puts a small amount of gold back onto a dial that would otherwise be entirely cool. The bezel is domed, a smooth continuous curve with no cuts, facets or setting, so the twelve dial stones are the only setting anywhere on the watch. The case is 36mm and the Jubilee bracelet runs from it in five-piece links, the outer pairs in steel and the inner three in gold. That construction puts the bracelet in an unusual position on this dial. Five links across the width means the gold arrives as narrow strips with steel between them, so the bracelet catches light in many small increments while the dial holds twelve fixed points and a field that gives nothing back. The two surfaces are working at different scales, and the eye reads the stones as deliberate placements against a bracelet that is simply shimmering. On the Oyster that relationship reverses.
A dark ground is also the easiest surface in the reference for the calendar to occupy, and none of that advantage is surrendered by setting it. The date disc is printed on a background matching a deep flat black closely, since the color has enough depth to absorb a small discrepancy, and the contrast between a light numeral and a dark field is the most legible arrangement the model produces. The window sits at three where a marker would otherwise be, so the ring is broken at one point and eleven stones remain. There is no day aperture and no second indication, and none has ever been added to a Datejust, so the dial holds twelve stones, two hands and one opening. The date sits under a lens set into the crystal, magnifying the numeral without distorting the ground, and the movement runs roughly seventy hours off a full wind with the calendar advanced by running the hands rather than through a corrector cut into the case band. Reading the time on a set dial is generally slower than on an applied-marker one, since a stone returns light unpredictably and can flare or go dark depending on the angle. Black is the exception that makes it work. The ground is so far from the markers in value that they never lose their positions, whatever the light is doing, and the watch stays as legible as the plain version of the same dial.
The reference uses two setting arrangements rather than one. On black, champagne and shell the stones replace all twelve markers; on silver and olive green only the Roman characters at six and nine are set and the rest of the ring stays plain gold. Those are opposite ideas about what a set dial is, and black takes the fuller of them. Five of the twelve grounds here are set and seven are not, and three grounds exist in both forms, black among them with champagne and olive green. Across the size the nine references divide by metal and bezel without repeating a combination, and the domed bezel is available on three of them. Black set is offered on all eight of the two-metal references at this size in one bezel treatment or another, which is wider distribution than most of the set grounds receive. It is not the only dark ground the model sets at this diameter, since slate is set on the three Everose references and dark grey on the two white gold ones, but it is the only dark ground that reaches every two-metal case in the size, which is a stronger position than either of them holds in the current range.
Black set with diamonds under a smooth bezel is the configuration where all the light on the watch is concentrated in one place. The rim gives nothing, the dial gives nothing, and twelve points do all the work, which produces a sharper and more controlled effect than a set bezel over the same ground would. Collectors who want a set dial and dislike how a diamond bezel commits the whole watch tend to come here, since the stones are contained within the diameter of the crystal and the case stays plain. The Jubilee keeps the piece moving, which suits a dial that is otherwise entirely still. For a buyer who wants diamonds on a two-tone Datejust without the watch reading as jewelry from across a room, black is the ground that permits it. The champagne version of the same arrangement sits on this reference for anyone who wants the opposite reading, and the two are worth seeing together before deciding.
