Four of the six references at this size offer white two ways and the two Everose ones offer it only with numerals. The steel reference, both yellow combinations and the white gold one build a white dial with applied markers as well as with a full Roman set; on this reference and its fluted twin only the numerals are made. Reference 126301 is the 41mm Datejust in a combination of stainless steel and Everose gold, carrying a smooth bezel, and this configuration pairs a plain white dial with a full set of Roman numerals and a Jubilee bracelet. White with numerals is the one dial every reference in the family builds.
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 a flat white holding one value at every angle, unlike the sunray grounds the reference also builds, and gold Roman numerals stand on it at the hours. This is the highest-contrast unset combination the reference offers after black: white and gold separate completely in any light, where gold on chocolate separates by height and shadow and gold on slate by a narrower margin of tone. The Jubilee is built from five-piece links with the gold in three narrow inner strips, so the warm metal is distributed across the bracelet rather than concentrated in one line. Against a white dial that distribution matters, because a pale ground surrounded by a bright bracelet needs the warm metal broken up if the watch is not to read as a single bright object; the strips give the eye a repeating structure to follow and the dial stays distinct from the wrist. The gold on the dial and the gold on the bracelet are the same metal, which ties the two halves of the watch together without either one dominating. A Roman numeral also holds more metal in the same footprint than an applied baton does, so a full set puts a good deal of gold inside the crystal even though nothing on the dial is a marker in the usual sense. On a white ground every one of those characters is visible at all times rather than catching light in turn.
Hours, minutes, running seconds and a date advancing in a single step at midnight rather than easing across into the day that follows. The self-winding movement in the 41mm case holds roughly seventy hours of running time, enough to leave the watch off the wrist across a weekend and find it running on Monday, which is the specification most likely to be noticed in ordinary use. 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. On a white ground the window is less disruptive than on any other dial the reference builds, since a white date disc against a white ground is nearly continuous with it and only the frame marks the interruption. Roman numerals identify their own positions rather than merely marking them, so the dial can be read without reference to the hands, and at forty-one millimeters they are printed larger than the same set is at any smaller size. That combination, a pale ground and the largest characters the model uses, makes this the most legible watch in the family by a clear margin. The seventy hours are the other thing worth knowing about this generation. The movement that preceded it held substantially less, and the practical consequence is that the watch survives a weekend in a drawer, which is noticed on a Monday rather than in any specification.
White is the ground with no metal preference anywhere in the range. At 31mm it is built on all seventeen Datejust references, at 41mm on all six, and it appears at 28mm, 34mm, 36mm, 40mm, 42mm and 44mm as well. What changes is the marker set. At 31mm it comes with Roman numerals only; at 36mm and 41mm both arrangements exist; at 28mm it is Roman again. Here the split is by metal, with the Everose pair taking numerals only and the other four references taking both. Within this reference white is one of eight grounds and one of six carrying 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 roster, while the steel reference is only smooth and the white gold combination only fluted. The fluted twin 126331 builds this dial identically. Counting both bracelets, a white Roman dial in this metal at this size therefore exists in four watches and no more, which is a narrower field than the ground's reach across the rest of the range would suggest. Six grounds are built at this reference and white is one of four the catalogue never offers with stones, alongside bright black, mint green and slate, while chocolate and sundust are also available set.
This is the configuration a buyer arrives at by wanting nothing in particular, and that is not a criticism. A white dial, gold numerals, a warm two-metal case and the more decorative of the two bracelets is the most conventional 41mm Datejust that can be specified in this metal, and conventional at this size means legible, unfussy and difficult to date. Anyone who wants the watch cooler should take the mint green or the slate, which are the two grounds here holding a cool tone. Anyone who wants it warmer should take the chocolate, which was made for this alloy. Anyone who wants applied markers on this ground will have to leave the Everose references entirely. And anyone who wants less gold in view should take the Oyster, where the same metal runs as one line rather than three strips and the broad brushed steel takes over most of the wrist. Between the two bracelets on this ground, the Jubilee is the warmer watch and the Oyster the plainer one, and neither is a compromise.
