This is the least worked configuration the reference offers. The bezel is smooth, the dial is unset, the markers are short batons rather than a full ring of numerals, and the bracelet carries its gold in a single line instead of three. Count the warm elements above the lugs and it comes to the rim and twelve small markers, which is less gold than any other colored dial here puts on display. Everything about the specification is a decision to do less, and on a case built from two metals that is a harder thing to arrive at than it sounds, since the usual reason for choosing two-tone is to have the gold be visible. Deciding to have it present and understated at the same time is a narrower target than either extreme, and most of the roster misses it in one direction or the other.
The ground is a muted grey-leaning green applied flat, with no gradient and no metallic component beneath, reading as green in direct light and drifting toward grey-brown in shade. That muted quality is doing structural work rather than decorative work: a saturated green would have demanded the gold answer it, and this one lets the metal stay quiet. The batons are applied in gold, short and rectangular with polished faces standing proud of the surface, read as positions on a circle rather than as characters to be recognized, which makes them faster to take in than numerals on a ground with this little contrast. It is the one place on the watch where the quieter choice is also the more functional one rather than a concession to taste. The bezel is domed, a smooth curve from case to crystal with no cuts, facets or setting, so nothing at the perimeter catches light in a pattern. A fluted rim would have thrown narrow vertical lines onto the outer edge of the dial and given the eye somewhere to go before it reached the markers, which is precisely what this configuration is built to avoid. The Oyster bracelet runs from the case in broad three-piece links, the outer two in steel and the middle in gold, with the clasp concealed beneath the final links so the gold line runs unbroken around the full circumference. The case is 36mm.
The date at three is the whole of what this model does beyond the time, and with batons the window displaces a marker rather than a numeral, which is the smaller of the two interruptions available on this reference. There is no day aperture and no second indication, and none has ever been added to a Datejust in the model's entire run, so the dial holds twelve markers, two hands and one opening. A printed disc matches a muted flat green closely, since the color is low in value and intensity and small discrepancies do not show against it. The date sits beneath a lens set into the crystal 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. There is a practical consequence to the marker treatment that only shows in use. A ring of batons is read as a set of positions and takes no interpretation, so the time registers from an angle and in a light where a numeral ring would need a second look. On a muted ground, where the markers are already working with less contrast than they would have on black or white, that margin matters more than it would elsewhere, and it is the strongest functional argument for choosing this treatment over the other one this ground offers.
Twelve dial configurations are offered here and each comes on both bracelets. Only white and olive green carry a choice of markers, and only olive green also exists in a set version, so this ground alone leaves all three decisions open to the buyer. Across the size the nine references divide by metal and bezel without repeating a combination, and the domed bezel appears on three of them, which makes the plainest rim less available than the fluted one most buyers picture when the model is named. Within the reference five of the twelve grounds are set and seven are not, and the marker choice belongs entirely to the unset side, since on a set dial the stones have taken the markers' place and the question cannot arise. That leaves white and olive green as the only two grounds where the buyer decides how the hours are marked, and this configuration takes the plainer of the two options on the quieter of the two grounds, which is as far toward restraint as the reference will let a buyer go without abandoning color altogether. Olive green and white are the only two grounds here that offer that choice, and the other eight arrive with their markers already fixed.
There is a kind of buyer who wants a two-tone Datejust and does not want it to look like one, and this configuration is the closest the reference comes to serving them. The gold is present in the case, the rim, the bracelet and the markers, so nothing has been given up structurally, but every one of those elements has been kept to its smallest reasonable expression. What remains is a green watch on a steel bracelet with warm detailing, which is a considerably quieter object than the specification would suggest. Collectors who own a fluted champagne Datejust and want something at the other end of the same range tend to end up here. For daily wear it is also the most practical version the reference makes, since a muted dial, a smooth rim and broad links all age better than their alternatives. The Jubilee carries the identical dial for anyone who wants the bracelet to do more, though on a configuration built around doing less it is the harder choice to justify.
