Four of the six references at this size are built in pairs and two are not. Each warm two-metal combination appears twice, once with a smooth rim and once with a fluted one, carrying an identical dial roster both times; the steel reference is built smooth and never fluted, and this one is built fluted and never smooth. Those two have nothing to be compared against except themselves. Reference 126334 is the 41mm Datejust in a combination of stainless steel and white gold, carrying a fluted bezel, and this configuration pairs a bright black dial with applied markers in white gold and an Oyster bracelet.
The dial is bright black, a glossy lacquered ground closer to a mirror than to a surface, which is what separates it from the sunray and matte dials the reference also builds. A sunray ground changes brightness as the wrist turns; a lacquered one reflects whatever is in front of it, so the dial picks up the room rather than the light. In practice that means the same watch photographs differently in every setting, and a listing image of a lacquered dial records the photographer as much as the watch. Applied markers in white gold stand at the hours, and against black lacquer they are the highest contrast this reference can produce. The case is forty-one millimeters in steel with a white gold bezel, crown and center links, and the rim is fluted, cut into repeating angled facets. Because the second metal here is white gold rather than yellow or Everose, the cut rim reads as worked steel rather than as gold, so the watch has a pattern at its edge without a change of color anywhere. The Oyster is built from three-piece links with broad brushed sections at the outside of every link. Between a mirrored dial and a cut rim, those matte faces are the only surface on the watch not returning light in some organized way. On the Jubilee version of this configuration that relief is much narrower, since a five-piece link keeps only thin brushed sections at its outer edges, and the watch has correspondingly less to break up the reflections coming off the dial and the rim.
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, more than the smaller Datejust cases carry, and it covers a weekend in a drawer with the watch still running. The date sits at three under a magnifying lens, and on this ground the window is the one weak point in an otherwise very legible dial: a white disc against black lacquer is brighter than the markers around it, and the eye finds it first every time. Everything else works in the same direction. Polished markers on a black ground need very little light to register, so the watch reads instantly in a dim room, and it reads worst in bright direct sun, where lacquer returns the source and the markers wash out until the wrist turns. 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 glare in the wrong conditions. The seventy hours the movement holds belong to this generation of the case and apply to every reference in the family, and they are the specification most likely to be noticed without being sought out.
Bright black at 41mm comes with applied markers on the steel reference, both yellow combinations and this one, and with Roman numerals on the two Everose references alone. Across the range the ground is not built in the small cases at all, starting at 31mm and running through 36mm, 40mm, 41mm and 42mm on twenty-nine references. Within this reference it is one of ten grounds, which is the widest roster at this size, and it is also offered set with diamonds here, one of three set dials the reference builds against two on each warm two-metal reference and none on the steel one. Two of those three are cool grounds, which no other reference at this size offers at all. That range is the character of the white gold combination: it carries the colors the warm references do not, the gradient they do not, and the set cool dials none of them build. A buyer working across the six references at this size will find the warm ones interchangeable in structure and this one different in kind, which is worth knowing before comparing them on the rim alone. Seven grounds are built at this reference and bright black is one of three offered both plain and set, with bright blue and slate, while green ombre, mint green, silver and white are never set.
This suits a buyer who wants a black watch rather than a two-metal one. White gold in a case like this does not announce itself as a second metal, so the flutes read as texture rather than as decoration and the whole watch resolves as a dark dial in a pale case. That is a quieter proposition than the same dial on a yellow or Everose reference, where the rim would be the first thing seen. It is also the reason this reference is the one most often bought by people who wanted a steel Datejust and were persuaded to spend a little more, since nothing about it looks like an upgrade from across a room. Anyone who wants the black to carry stones should take the set version, built on this reference and on no other at this size. Anyone who wants a dial that holds still in bright light should take the slate or the silver, neither of which is lacquered. And anyone who wants more of the case in view should take the Jubilee, where the white gold is broken into three strips across the wrist rather than running as one line.
