Count the cool elements on this watch and you reach one. The case combines steel and yellow gold, the bezel is gold, the bracelet carries gold through its center, the dial is champagne and the marker settings are gold as well. The only thing on the piece that is not warm is the stones themselves, twelve of them replacing the markers entirely, and they are working against everything else at once. On a black or a shell ground the diamonds have a cool or neutral surface to sit against and the contrast does the work; here they have none, and what makes them read is the difference between how a faceted stone returns light and how a metallic dial does. That is a narrower margin than any other set configuration on the reference works with, and it is the reason champagne set dials are the ones most often described as subtle by people who own them and as invisible by people who do not.
Champagne is a reflective finish rather than a flat color, moving between pale gold and deep cream as the light changes, and on a two-tone case it does something no other ground on the reference does: it makes the watch read as a gold watch. The steel is still present in the bracelet and the case flanks, but a warm dial pulls the whole composition toward the bezel and the gold links, and the steel recedes into a supporting role. That is either the point of specifying this dial or the argument against it, depending on why a buyer wanted two metals in the first place. The markers are diamonds set into gold surrounds, so the settings themselves disappear into the ground and only the stones remain visible. The bezel is domed and unadorned, which leaves the twelve dial stones as the only setting on the watch. The case is 36mm and the Jubilee bracelet runs from it in five-piece links. The Jubilee distributes its gold across three inner links with steel on either side, so the warm metal on the bracelet arrives as narrow strips rather than a single band. On a champagne dial that suits the composition, since the dial is already carrying the watch toward gold and a broad continuous strip would have pushed it further than the case can support. Broken into segments, the bracelet stays legibly two-tone while the head of the watch does not.
The date at three is the whole of what this model does beyond the time. There is no day aperture and no second indication, so the dial carries a ring of stones, two hands and one window and nothing else at all. A printed disc cannot match a metallic ground through its range, since the dial changes value continuously and the disc cannot follow, so the frame around the window is doing more than decorating an edge and is proportionally more visible here than on a flat dial. The date sits under a lens set into the crystal. The movement runs roughly seventy hours off a full wind, and everything is set through the crown, with the calendar advanced by running the hands rather than through a corrector in the case band. Twelve stones set into a metallic ground is the harder of the two setting problems this reference poses. On a flat dark dial the diamonds separate by value alone and the work is largely a matter of consistency; here both the dial and the stones are returning light, so the separation comes from the character of the reflection rather than its quantity, and a marker seated even slightly low reads as dimmer than its neighbors rather than merely lower.
This reference sets its dials two ways and champagne takes the fuller of them. 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 as plain gold numerals. Twelve dial configurations are offered in total, each on both bracelets, and only two grounds come with a choice of markers. Across the size, nine references divide by metal and bezel without repeating a combination, and a domed bezel is available on three of them, which makes the plainest rim scarcer than the fluted one most buyers picture. Champagne also arrives with its markers fixed, as ten of the twelve grounds on this reference do. Only white and olive green offer a choice between Roman numerals and applied batons, and on the set grounds the question does not arise at all, since the stones are the markers. Of the ten grounds this reference carries, five are set and five are not, an even division, and the marker choice belongs entirely to the unset side. The two set arrangements differ as well, since three grounds take stones in place of the markers and two take Roman characters at six and nine instead.
Champagne set with diamonds on a domed bezel is the warmest configuration the reference makes and the one that commits hardest. There is no cool element anywhere except the stones, no fluting to break the surface, and no part of the watch holding anything back. Collectors who want a two-tone Datejust that behaves like a gold one arrive here, and those who wanted the steel to remain visible go to silver or slate instead. What this configuration does unusually well is age: a champagne dial with set markers has been a recognizable proposition in this model for decades, and the domed bezel keeps it from looking like a recent decision. For a buyer who wants the traditional reading of a set Datejust without the fluting that usually accompanies it, this is where that sits. The Oyster version of the same watch runs its gold in one continuous line instead of three, which suits the dial differently and is the only other decision left to make.
