This is the only configuration on the reference where the dial carries no stones at all. Reference 128345RBR is the 36mm Day-Date in Everose gold with a factory diamond-set bezel, and here that bezel sits above an olive green dial with applied hour markers and nothing set into it. Every other version of this reference puts diamonds on the dial as well; this one confines the setting entirely to the bezel. The effect is a watch with a hard bright ring enclosing a deep, matte-toned field, and it is the most graphic thing Rolex builds in this range precisely because it refuses to distribute the stones evenly.
The 36mm case is Everose gold, the alloy Rolex developed in 2005 so that its copper content holds the pink tone permanently rather than fading toward yellow as conventional rose gold does. The bezel is set with diamonds in place of the fluting the Day-Date normally wears, which removes the feature that identifies the model at a distance and substitutes a continuous ring of white stone. The olive green dial is a deep, muted green with a brown undertone, considerably darker and less saturated than the bright greens Rolex uses elsewhere in the catalogue, and against Everose gold it produces a warm-on-warm pairing that neither yellow nor white gold would give. Applied hour markers in gold run around the perimeter without stones, which is the whole point of the configuration: with a set bezel already supplying brightness, a set dial would leave nowhere for the eye to rest. The day is spelled in full at twelve, the date at three under a magnifying lens. The President bracelet is Everose gold with semi-circular three-piece links and a concealed folding Crownclasp, left unset so the diamonds stay concentrated in a single band at the top of the watch. Olive is a green with brown in it rather than a saturated one, and it behaves accordingly: under direct light it reads clearly as green, and under low or diffuse light it darkens toward brown and can pass for a dark grey dial entirely.
Two functions beyond the time: a day of the week spelled in full and an instantaneous date, with secure rapid-setting for both and a stop-seconds function for setting the time precisely. Nothing has been added in seven decades. The Day-Date became the first wristwatch to show the day as a complete word in 1956, which required a disc larger than existing calendar architectures could hold, and the movement was built around that rather than adapted from one already in production. Both indications change instantaneously at midnight rather than dragging through the transition. Day discs are offered in a wide range of languages and fixed per watch at manufacture rather than user-selectable, so the language is a permanent characteristic of the individual piece. Setting runs through a screw-down crown with a double sealing system, with no correctors on the case flank and nothing requiring a tool. The self-winding movement holds approximately seventy hours of power reserve, so both calendar indications hold through a weekend off the wrist. Applied gold markers on an unset dial rely on relief and shadow rather than on stones for definition, so legibility depends on how the light strikes the case rather than on the markers returning it, and against a diamond bezel that difference is pronounced.
Green has moved from a rare color in the Rolex catalogue to a central one over the past two decades, and olive is the least assertive version of it, closer to the muted tones the brand used on Day-Date dials in the 1970s than to the bright greens now associated with the sports models. Rolex offers it on this reference without dial setting and on the fluted-bezel 128235 in the same treatment, which makes the unset dial a consistent choice across the Everose gold range rather than an anomaly on one watch. Factory diamond bezels have been standing catalogue options on the Day-Date since the 1960s. Within the Everose gold 36mm range this sits above the fluted-bezel 128235 and below the 128395TBR, and the same olive green dial is offered here with a diamond-set bracelet as well. Eleven grounds are built at this reference and olive green is one of only three that can be had without stones on the dial, with brown ombre and white, and one of two that are never offered set at all. The remaining eight exist in set form alone, which places this configuration at the plain edge of a roster that is otherwise almost entirely decorated. Nothing else here keeps the setting confined to the case in the same way.
This configuration appeals to collectors who want the case decorated and the dial left alone. That is a coherent position and a less common one than it should be, because most buyers at this level of setting extend the stones across the dial as a matter of course. Keeping the dial plain gives the watch a structure the fully set versions do not have: a bright band, a dark center, and a clear separation between them. It suits buyers who find gem-set dials busy and plain-bezel watches insufficient, and collectors who want a green Day-Date that reads as a dress watch rather than as a color exercise. Olive is ordered less often than the brighter greens across the range and considerably less often than the neutrals, so it turns up rarely, and the unset dial narrows the field further. One further point is worth recording, and it concerns where the configuration sits in the range. Rolex offers the same olive green dial with a fluted bezel on the 128235 and with a set bracelet on this reference, This is the one that keeps the setting in a single place.
