This is the most structured mother-of-pearl configuration Rolex builds. Reference 128345RBR is the 36mm Day-Date in Everose gold with a factory diamond-set bezel, and here that bezel sits above a white nacre dial with baguette-cut diamond hour markers, on a diamond-set President bracelet. Rectangles on the dial, a continuous ring on the bezel, and set links running down both sides of the wrist. Everything on the watch above the case flank is either stone or shell, and the geometry is consistent throughout in a way none of the other configurations on this reference manage. Mother-of-pearl is the only ground here offered in two marker arrangements, and this is the one that keeps every set element rectangular.
The 36mm case is Everose gold, the alloy Rolex developed in 2005 so its copper content holds the pink tone permanently rather than fading toward yellow as conventional rose gold alloys do. Diamonds replace the fluting on the bezel, and the President bracelet is set as well, which is the harder of the two operations by a considerable margin: the links flex thousands of times a day and each stone has to survive that, which is why factory-set bracelets are made in far smaller numbers than set bezels and why bracelet setting is the component where aftermarket work most often fails. The dial is cut from white mother-of-pearl, sliced from shell, never artificially colored, and working by interference rather than reflection, so the surface shows pale shifting hues rather than a fixed color. Baguette-cut diamonds serve as the hour markers around the full perimeter, cut as stepped rectangles that return light in flat planes rather than scattering it. Choosing a single consistent marker form is what makes this configuration work at this level of setting, because a mixed treatment would introduce a third geometry into a watch that already carries two. The day is at twelve, the date at three under a magnifying lens, and the clasp is a concealed folding Crownclasp. Every set element on the watch is either a rectangle or a continuous line, and nothing on it is round except the case itself, so the geometry never breaks.
Day of the week spelled in full, instantaneous date, secure rapid-setting for both, and a stop-seconds function for setting the time exactly. That is the complete function set and it has not changed since 1956, when the Day-Date became the first wristwatch to show the day as a full word, a display requiring a larger disc than existing calendar architectures could hold and around which the movement was built rather than adapted. Both indications jump instantaneously at midnight rather than dragging through the transition. Day discs are offered in a wide range of languages and fixed to the individual watch at manufacture rather than selectable afterward. Adjustment 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 carries approximately seventy hours of power reserve. The mechanical specification is identical to the plainest version of the reference. Eleven grounds are built at this reference and that specification does not change across any of them, so the dial and its markers carry the whole of the difference. Nacre is soft enough to recede beneath a fully set case, which is what is wanted here, since a paved or strongly colored dial would compete with the bezel and the bracelet and leave the watch without a center. The banding differs on every example, so the individual dial matters more than the specification.
Rolex has combined nacre dials with full case and bracelet setting for decades and produces such configurations in very small numbers, limited by the setting work and by the shell yield rather than by demand. The practice is confined to precious metals and has never reached a steel reference. Baguette markers are the less common of the two treatments on these dials, made in smaller numbers because the cut wastes more of the rough and because matching a full set is a harder sourcing problem than matching brilliants. Within the Everose gold 36mm range this is the fully set baguette configuration of the 128345RBR, above the same treatment on a plain bracelet and above the fluted-bezel 128235. Setting the President is the hardest work on the watch and the component where aftermarket setting most often fails, so establishing that the bracelet is factory work is the first thing to check on any example. Mother-of-pearl is the only ground at this reference listed in more than one marker arrangement, taking ten baguette cuts here and framed markers with baguettes at six and nine in the alternative, and it is one of eight grounds that exist only in set form. Only brown ombre, olive green and white can be had without stones, and two of those three are never offered set at all.
This appeals to collectors who want maximum setting and minimum visual noise, which sounds contradictory and is not. Baguettes on nacre inside a set bezel and bracelet produce a watch made almost entirely of white stone that nonetheless reads as ordered rather than as dazzling, because every element is rectangular or linear and nothing scatters. It suits established collectors who already own several set Day-Dates and want the one with a single design logic running through it. Every dial differs in its banding, and configurations combining full setting with a nacre dial and a consistent baguette treatment turn up rarely enough that most buyers take the example they find. One further point closes the case for this configuration. Nacre cannot be repolished, matched or repaired, so the specific dial matters more than the specification and a damaged one means a different watch rather than a restored one. No two dials band the same way.
