At this size the ground changes marker set depending on the metal it is put in. Mint green is built on four of the six 41mm references, and the two Everose ones carry it with Roman numerals while the steel reference and the white gold combination carry it with applied markers. The two yellow references do not build it at all. Reference 126301 is the 41mm Datejust in a combination of stainless steel and Everose gold, carrying a smooth bezel, and this configuration pairs a mint green dial with a full set of Roman numerals and a Jubilee bracelet. The metal decided the markers before the buyer saw the watch.
The case is forty-one millimeters in steel with an Everose gold bezel, crown and center links, and the rim is smooth rather than fluted. The dial is mint green, a pale cool green with a sunray finish, and it is the lightest ground the reference builds after white. Roman numerals in gold stand at the hours, applied at a uniform size with nothing enlarged. Pale green against rose gold is a wider tonal gap than anything else on this reference; chocolate and sundust are built to agree with the alloy and slate simply ignores it, but mint is cool enough to sit against the case rather than beside it. The numerals are what hold the two together, since they put warm metal inside the dial and stop the green from reading as a separate object dropped into a gold frame. The Jubilee is built from five-piece links with the gold in three narrow inner strips, so the warm metal is distributed rather than concentrated, and on a pale dial that distribution is what keeps the watch from splitting visually into a cool face and a warm bracelet. The five-piece construction also articulates more freely than a three-piece one, so the bracelet follows the wrist rather than holding a fixed curve, and on a forty-one millimeter watch that is a meaningful difference in how the piece sits rather than only in how it looks.
Hours, minutes, running seconds and a date advancing in a single step at midnight rather than easing into the day that follows. The self-winding movement in the 41mm case holds roughly seventy hours of running time, a longer reserve than the smaller Datejust cases and a different movement from theirs. The date sits at three under a magnifying lens and takes the position a numeral would otherwise occupy, so the Roman set runs to ten characters rather than eleven. Roman numerals identify their own positions rather than only marking them, which means the dial can be read without reference to the hands, and on a pale ground with gold characters that reading is quick in any light. It is also the arrangement putting the most gold on the dial of any unset configuration here: ten full characters is considerably more metal than twelve applied batons, and on a light ground every one of them is visible at all times rather than catching light in turn. That is the practical difference between this dial and the applied-marker version the steel and white gold references build. The seventy hours of reserve are worth stating plainly, since it is the specification on this watch a buyer is most likely to notice without looking for it: the piece can be left off the wrist across a weekend and still be running on Monday, which the smaller Datejust cases cannot manage.
Mint green is a recent ground and it is distributed unevenly. At 31mm it appears on five references, at 36mm on six in two marker arrangements, at 41mm on four in two arrangements, and at 42mm on one. At none of those sizes is it built on a yellow case, and at 41mm specifically the two yellow references are the two that skip it. The marker split at this size follows the metal exactly: Roman numerals on the two Everose references, applied markers on the steel one and on the white gold combination. At 36mm the same split appears with the same logic, the Everose cases taking numerals and the cooler ones taking batons. Within this reference mint green is one of eight grounds and one of six carrying no stones. The 41mm family offers no solid gold, no set bezel and no President bracelet, so this dial, its rim and its bracelet are the whole specification, and the fluted twin 126331 builds the same eight grounds under flutes. The family is arranged in twinned pairs on that principle: each warm metal combination is built once smooth and once fluted with an identical dial roster, while the steel reference exists only smooth and the white gold combination only fluted. Mint green at this size therefore comes in four watches, two of them with these numerals.
This suits a buyer who wants a colored dial that reads as a light one rather than as a statement. Mint is pale enough that at a distance it registers as a pale grey or a white, and the color only asserts itself in direct light or at close range, which makes it a quieter choice than the specification suggests. Against rose gold it is also the coolest ground the reference offers apart from slate, so the watch has a genuine temperature contrast in it, which the chocolate and sundust dials deliberately avoid. Anyone who wants the color without the numerals will not find that combination on this reference, since the applied-marker version is built only on the steel and white gold cases. Anyone who wants less warm metal in view should take the Oyster, which confines the gold to a single center line. And anyone who wants the rim to add pattern should take 126331.
