There’s some hesitation among our team each time we’re about to post an Onyx dial Day-Date. It has little to do with the watch itself but rather with the chaos that ensues.

Onyx Day-Dates are among the most coveted and asked about watches in our store. Each time we have one for sale, dozens of people beg us to sell it directly to them. But we’ll have none of that. These babies go straight into our drop so everyone gets a fair shot!

Onyx is, without a doubt, the most popular stone dial. And one look at that stunning deep black beauty tells you all you need to know. While gemstone dials are beautiful, they’re also quite fragile and many of them have developed cracks or rips over the years. Therefore, a flawless dial, like the one on this watch, greatly increases its desirability. 

This particular watch is an early and rare execution of the Onyx dial. Most Onyx dials appear in 182XX series Day-Dates, which generally feature ‘Swiss Made’ at the 6 o’clock position. This beauty, however, is cased in an early ref. 18038 Day-Date and is characterized by the ‘T Swiss T’ text at the bottom. A way rare Onyx dial.

This ref. 18038 dates back to 1979 and comes in the classic Day-Date package: a 36 mm 18K yellow gold Oyster case with matching fluted bezel and the iconic President bracelet with concealed folding clasp. The watch is powered by the cal. 3055 automatic movement with a convenient single quickset functionality to independently adjust the time and date.