Two things can be true of the same dial: that mother-of-pearl is the softest material Rolex works with, and that baguette-cut diamonds are the hardest-edged markers it sets. Reference 128345RBR is the 36mm Day-Date in Everose gold with a factory diamond-set bezel, and this configuration puts baguette-cut stones as the hour markers across a white nacre dial, on a plain Everose gold President bracelet. It is the more architectural of the two mother-of-pearl treatments Rolex offers on the reference, the alternative using round stones in gold settings with baguettes only at six and nine, and the difference between them is considerably larger than the specification suggests.
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. The bezel carries diamonds in place of the Day-Date's usual fluting. The dial is cut from white mother-of-pearl, sliced from shell and never artificially colored, and it works by interference rather than reflection: light passes into the layered nacre and returns shifted, which is why the surface shows pale pinks and greens that change with viewing angle and with the color temperature of the surrounding light. Baguette-cut diamonds serve as the hour markers around the full perimeter, cut as stepped rectangles rather than brilliants so they return light in broad flat planes instead of scattering it. Against a surface that never settles, that geometry is the entire point: the markers are the only fixed thing on the dial, and they give the eye somewhere stable to land while the nacre moves underneath them. The day is spelled in full at twelve, the date at three beneath a magnifying lens. The President bracelet is Everose gold with semi-circular three-piece links and a concealed folding Crownclasp. Baguettes waste substantially more of the rough stone than brilliants, because the finished rectangle does not follow the crystal's natural shape, and assembling a full set matched for color, clarity and dimension across one dial is a sourcing problem before it is a setting one.
Two indications and nothing more: a day of the week spelled in full and an instantaneous date, with secure rapid-setting for both and a stop-seconds function for precise time setting. That has been the whole of the Day-Date since 1956, when it became the first wristwatch to show the day as a full word, a display requiring a disc larger than existing calendar architectures could hold and around which the movement was built rather than adapted. Both indications change instantaneously at midnight rather than dragging through the transition. Day discs are available in a wide range of languages and fixed per watch at manufacture rather than user-selectable, making the language 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 needing a tool. The self-winding movement holds approximately seventy hours of power reserve. There is no second time zone, no chronograph and no annual calendar. Eleven grounds are built at this reference and the display never changes beneath any of them, so the markers carry the difference. Rolex generally pairs baguette markers with flat, stable dials where the geometry has something firm to sit against, and using them on nacre inverts that logic deliberately, and the markers supply the stability the dial refuses to.
Baguette settings are a later development on Rolex dials than round-stone markers and remain the less common of the two treatments, produced in smaller numbers because the cut wastes substantially more of the rough stone and because matching a full set for color, clarity and dimension is a harder sourcing problem than matching brilliants. Mother-of-pearl entered the range in the 1970s and is used most often on the Day-Date and the Lady-Datejust, never on steel and never dyed. Within the Everose gold 36mm range this sits above the fluted-bezel 128235 and below the 128395TBR, and the same treatment is offered on this reference with a diamond-set bracelet as well. Because nacre cannot be repolished or matched and baguette settings cannot be replaced individually without disturbing the set, an example with a clean dial deserves considerably more attention than one with a marginally better bracelet. Mother-of-pearl is the only ground at this reference offered 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 at all. Two of those three are never offered set at all.
This configuration is bought by collectors who want a gem-set dial that reads as composed rather than as bright. Baguettes on nacre produce a watch that is unmistakably set on inspection and unusually calm at a distance, because the stones read as geometry rather than as glitter and the dial beneath them shifts slowly rather than sparkling. It appeals to buyers who find round-brilliant settings too busy against a reflective surface, and to collectors who already own the mixed-setting version and want the one with a single consistent marker form. Against that alternative the choice is structure versus variety, and it is a real decision rather than a preference between near-identical watches. Neither turns up often, and seeing both at once is rarer still. The mixed setting gives the dial variety and the all-baguette treatment gives it order, and collectors who handle both almost never find them interchangeable or rank one above the other. They pick the logic they prefer and stay with it, which is why dealers who carry a nacre Day-Date in one treatment rarely find the other easy to place with the same client.
