We love vintage watches for their wide range of flavors and creative, sometimes downright quirky, details.

One particular category among them are the differing metal textures. Rolex, for instance, was well known for experimenting with different ways of stamping, milling, and engraving bezels, cases, and even bracelets. Unfortunately, this practice had all but ceased by the 1990s. This 18K yellow gold ref. 16248 from 1995 is one of the last among them and quite an exquisite one at that.

The watch features a bark-finish bezel and bracelet. The bark finish was quite popular in the 1970s and, to a lesser extent, in the 1980s and quite a few bark Day-Dates have survived that era. Yet, it is very uncommon to run across a gold Datejust with a bark finish and an original Jubilee bracelet with the bark finish center links.

It would almost be sacrilegious for such a magnificent watch to feature a run-of-the-mill champagne dial. So, it’s a good thing that the watch is equipped with a flawless inky-black onyx dial with applied 18K yellow gold and diamond-set Arabic numerals at the 6 and 9 o’clock positions.

This special ref. 16248 is in practically new old stock condition with the original case back sticker still attached and runs on the updated cal. 3135 automatic movement with a convenient quisket date function.