The smallest cases do not get this dial. Bright black begins at 31mm and runs up through 36mm, 40mm, 41mm and 42mm, on twenty-nine references, and where it is built the marker treatment is decided by the case: Roman numerals everywhere at 31mm, applied markers everywhere at 40mm and 42mm, and a split by metal at the two sizes in between. Reference 126301 is the 41mm Datejust in a combination of stainless steel and Everose gold, carrying a smooth bezel, and this configuration pairs a bright black dial with a full set of Roman numerals and an Oyster bracelet. A full Roman sequence needs a dial wide enough to carry twelve numerals cleanly, which is why it appears more often at this diameter than below it.
The Oyster is built from three-piece links with the gold running as one continuous center line down the wrist between broad flat sections of steel. Those flat sections are brushed rather than polished, and on this configuration they are the only matte surface on the entire watch. The dial is bright black lacquer, closer to a mirror than to a surface, with gold Roman numerals standing on it at the hours; the bezel is smooth Everose gold, a single unbroken polished band; the case sides and the center links are polished as well. Against all of that, the broad brushed steel of the Oyster is what stops the watch from being uniformly reflective, and it is why this bracelet suits a lacquered dial better than it suits a matte one. The Jubilee alternative multiplies edges and flashes; the Oyster gives the eye somewhere to rest. The two also sit differently, since a three-piece link is stiffer across its width than a five-piece one and holds more of a fixed curve on the wrist. The case is forty-one millimeters, the largest the model is built in, and the dial occupies proportionally more of it than at any smaller size, so the mirrored ground is a large area by any measure. Lacquer is also the only dial finish on this reference that is applied rather than worked into the metal, which is why it reads as a depth rather than as a texture; a sunray ground is brushed in fine lines radiating from the middle and a lacquered one has no visible structure at all, and the difference is obvious once the two are seen together.
Hours, minutes, running seconds and a date changing in one step at midnight. The self-winding movement in the 41mm case holds roughly seventy hours of running time, from a movement built for this diameter rather than shared with the smaller cases, and that reserve is enough to leave the watch off the wrist across a weekend and find it still running. The date sits at three and takes the position a numeral would occupy, so the Roman set runs to ten characters rather than eleven. What a lacquered ground does to legibility is worth understanding before choosing it. Gold on black is the strongest contrast pairing the reference offers and the dial is easy to read in most conditions, but lacquer reflects its surroundings rather than diffusing them, so in bright direct light the surface returns the source and the numerals wash out until the wrist moves. Matte and sunray grounds do not do this. The trade is a dial that looks deeper and darker than any other on the reference in ordinary light, in exchange for a few seconds of unreadability in the sun. That is a real consideration on a watch of this size, since a forty-one millimeter dial presents more reflective area than a smaller one and catches the source at more angles. Whether it matters depends entirely on where the watch is worn, and most owners of lacquered dials report noticing it once and then not again.
On this reference the marker set follows whether the ground was made for the metal. Chocolate and sundust were developed alongside the Everose alloy and take applied markers; bright black, mint green and white were borrowed from the wider range and take Roman numerals; slate takes an arrangement built for it alone. The four references at this size that are not Everose invert that, putting applied markers on all three borrowed grounds, so a black dial with numerals at 41mm means an Everose case and nothing else. Within this reference black is one of eight grounds and one of six with no stones, since only chocolate and sundust are offered set. The family is arranged in twinned pairs, each warm metal combination built once smooth and once fluted on an identical dial roster, while the steel reference exists only smooth and the white gold combination only fluted. The fluted twin 126331 carries the identical eight, and between the two of them the rim is the only difference. That makes the black lacquer dial available in four watches at this size in this metal, counting both rims and both bracelets, which is the full extent of the choice; there is no third bracelet, no set version of the ground and no solid gold case to move it into.
This is the most restrained way to have a two-metal watch that still reads as one. A brushed steel bracelet with a single line of gold, a smooth gold rim, and a black dial that reflects rather than declares. The Roman numerals are the only ornament on the piece and they are functional ornament, since they carry the hours rather than marking them. Anyone who wants more of the gold in view should take the Jubilee version of this configuration, where the same metal is broken into three strips and the watch reads considerably warmer. Anyone who wants the dial to hold still in bright light should take the slate, which is sunray rather than lacquered and never returns the source. And anyone who wants this dial with applied markers will have to move to one of the four references at this size that are not Everose, since neither Everose reference builds it that way.
