Six set dials are offered on platinum at 40mm and only one of them is a platinum ground. Bright black set appears on three metals, silver set on three, mother-of-pearl set on all four, meteorite set and the paved dial with sapphires on platinum and white gold both. Ice blue set is the exception: it exists on platinum and on nothing else, at either size, in either form. So a buyer choosing a set dial at this diameter is choosing a dial that could have been had in another metal, unless they choose this one. It is the only configuration on the reference where the stones sit on a ground that identifies the case they are fitted to.
The ground is a pale glacial blue, cool and faintly reflective, close to white in direct light and settling toward grey in shade. Setting stones into it is a harder proposition than it appears, because a pale ground and a diamond are working in the same register and the two can converge until the ring loses definition. Baguette cuts resolve it by geometry rather than by contrast. Cut as long stepped rectangles and laid flat, they return light in broad sheets from a single plane, while the ground returns it diffusely across a shallow curve, so the markers separate by the character of the light rather than by its quantity. At 40mm the effect has room to establish itself, since a pale ground spread across a wider dial reads lighter overall and needs the fixed points more. The case is 40mm in platinum with the flat wide lugs and low band the model uses throughout, the bezel is fluted, and the President bracelet runs from the lugs in polished three-piece links closing on a concealed clasp. Fluting suits a pale ground better than it suits a dark one. The ring throws narrow vertical lines that are bright against a dark dial and nearly indistinguishable against a pale one, so on ice blue the bezel recedes and the boundary between case and dial softens almost to nothing. The watch reads as a single continuous pale object interrupted only by the ring of stones and the two apertures, which is an effect the set-bezel reference cannot produce, because there the perimeter is the brightest thing on the watch.
A pale ground is the most demanding surface in the range for the calendar, and this is the version of ice blue where that shows. Printing and disc matching both become exacting, because there is no depth in the color to absorb a small error the way a dark ground would and no strong value to swamp it. The day is written out in full at twelve in words rather than shortened to three letters, so the wider of the two openings sits at the top of the dial and carries the greater share of that burden, though at this diameter it takes proportionally less of the surface than it does at 36mm. The date sits at three beneath a lens set into the crystal. Both discs advance instantaneously at midnight rather than drifting through the preceding hour, and the movement carries roughly seventy hours off a full wind. Setting is done entirely through the crown, with no correctors cut into the case band. One thing the set version gives up is the marker decision. Plain ice blue is offered with applied markers and with Roman numerals, one of five grounds in the range where the choice exists at all; the set version has no such alternative, since the stones are the markers and there is nothing else to specify. So the four ways this ground can be had are not four equivalent choices. Two of them carry a further decision inside them and two do not.
Ice blue is the one ground in the model a buyer can have four ways, plain and set at both case sizes, and all four are platinum watches because the ground exists on no other metal. Nothing else in the range offers that. White and the paved dial reach every metal but are fixed in a single treatment, mother-of-pearl offers two marker arrangements but only at the smaller size, and the ombres and stones are each pinned to one size or one metal or one setting. Thirteen grounds are offered on platinum at 40mm and only five cross to the smaller case, ice blue among them in both forms, which makes it the ground that ties the two diameters together. Two references carry the roster, this one with a fluted bezel and 228396TBR with a set one, and their configurations are identical. Ice blue is also the only ground on the entire 40mm platinum roster that belongs to the metal. Bright black, olive green and silver set each reach three metals; white and mother-of-pearl reach all four; bright blue, meteorite, slate, blue ombre and the paved ground with sapphires are shared with white gold. Every one of the thirteen has a home somewhere else except this. That is worth weighing, because it means twelve of the dials on this reference can be had on a case that looks almost identical and costs less to make, and one cannot.
Ice blue set with diamonds is the configuration that states the metal and then decorates it, which is a narrower proposition than it sounds. Every other set dial at this size could be mistaken for a white gold watch, since the grounds themselves carry no information about the case; this one cannot, because a collector who knows the range reads the dial and knows what it is fitted to. Pairing that with a fluted bezel keeps the announcement on the dial alone and leaves the case in the register it has always occupied. The alternative is the set-bezel reference, where the light runs continuously from the perimeter onto the dial and the watch stops being subtle in any respect. For a buyer who wants the platinum legible, the stones present and the case unremarkable, this is where those three things meet. It is also the only set dial on the reference that could not have been bought in another metal.
