Everything on this watch above the case flank is either carnelian or set with diamonds. Reference 128348RBR is the 36mm Day-Date in yellow gold, and this configuration combines a diamond-set bezel, a diamond-set President bracelet and a carnelian dial whose gold hour markers are set with diamonds, with Roman numerals at six and nine in gold and also set. It is the fully committed version of the stone-dial Day-Date, and the orange-red of the carnelian is the only color anywhere on it. Rolex offers the same dial on this reference with a plain bracelet, and on the fluted-bezel 128238 with no case setting at all, and the difference between the three is a difference in how much of the watch is meant to be looked at.
The 36mm case is solid yellow gold with a diamond-set bezel replacing the model's usual fluting, and a President bracelet whose links are set as well. Setting a bracelet is materially harder than setting a bezel: the links articulate constantly in wear, and each stone has to hold through repeated flexing, which is why factory-set bracelets are produced in far smaller numbers and why aftermarket bracelet work fails more often than any other setting on a watch. The dial is cut from carnelian, an opaque orange-red chalcedony that has been carved and polished since antiquity and was prized because hot wax will not adhere to it. Rolex slices the stone from raw blocks and keeps only those whose color and structure meet its own standard, so the yield is low and every dial carries a different internal banding. Gold hour markers set with diamonds ring the perimeter, with diamond-set Roman numerals at six and nine giving the dial a vertical axis. The day is at twelve, the date at three under a magnifying lens, and the clasp is a concealed folding Crownclasp. Surrounded by diamonds on the bezel and the bracelet, the carnelian is the only element on the watch carrying color, and it does all the work of giving the eye somewhere to settle. An all-white configuration at this level of setting reads as a continuous field of light.
The complication set is 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 else, in seven decades. The Day-Date became the first wristwatch to display the day as a full word in 1956, which required a disc larger than existing calendar architectures could accommodate, and the movement was built around that constraint rather than adapted from one already in production. Both indications change instantaneously at midnight rather than dragging through. Day discs come in a wide range of languages and are fixed per watch at manufacture rather than user-selectable. Setting runs through a screw-down crown with a double sealing system and nothing on the case needs a tool. The self-winding movement holds approximately seventy hours of power reserve. None of this differs from the plainest version of the reference, because setting adds material and changes nothing mechanical. Eight grounds are built at this reference and the display holds across all of them. Carnelian is opaque and saturated enough to hold against diamonds on the bezel and the bracelet at once, which is not true of every material Rolex cuts dials from, since a softer or more translucent stone would be flattened by that much surrounding brightness.
Rolex has combined stone dials with full case and bracelet setting for decades and produces such configurations in very small numbers, constrained by the setting work and by the stone yield rather than by demand. The practice is confined to precious metals and has never reached a steel reference. Within the yellow gold 36mm range this is the most heavily worked configuration of the 128348RBR, above the same reference with a plain bracelet and well above the fluted-bezel 128238 carrying the same dial. It belongs to the current 36mm generation, which replaced the 118 series with the present movement family, and sits alongside the 40mm 228348RBR. Setting the President is the hardest work on the watch, since the links articulate continuously and every stone has to survive that flexing, and it is the single component where aftermarket setting fails most often, so establishing that a set bracelet is factory work is the first check on any example. Within the reference, carnelian is one of five grounds offered only in set form, champagne is the one listed both plain and set, and green ombre and white are never set at all. Champagne and mother-of-pearl each come in two marker arrangements, and every ground is offered on either bracelet.
This is bought by collectors who want a stone dial framed by setting on every side and who regard a plain bracelet as an unfinished thought. It appeals in markets where fully set watches are ordinary rather than exceptional, and to established buyers assembling a group of Day-Dates in which this occupies the jewelry position. Carnelian is the right stone for it: opaque, saturated and dense enough to hold against diamonds on the bezel and the bracelet simultaneously, where a softer or more translucent material would be overwhelmed. Every dial differs in its banding, so the specific example matters more than the configuration. Watches at this level of setting with a hardstone dial surface rarely, and most buyers take the one they find rather than specifying what they want. One further point is worth recording, and it concerns how the configuration should be judged. It is a jewelry object with a serious movement inside it, and collectors who assess it as a watch with decoration added will consistently undervalue what it is. Nobody buys this by elimination, and nobody who wants it is persuaded by the plainer versions of the same reference.
