Rolex Sky-Dweller Yellow Rolesor Black Dial 326933 2020

Reference 326933 is the Sky-Dweller in Yellow Rolesor — Oystersteel with yellow gold — black dial, Oyster bracelet, and a fluted gold bezel that turns.

Rolex calls that bezel Ring Command, and it is the key to the whole watch. It is neither decoration nor a timing device but a selector: turning it changes what the winding crown is connected to, so one position sets the date, another the local hour, another the reference time. Everything is adjusted through the crown, in either direction, with no pusher and no tool anywhere on the case.

What it adjusts is the Saros annual calendar, which Rolex introduced with this model in 2012. It distinguishes thirty- and thirty-one-day months on its own and needs correcting only once a year, at the end of February. The month is shown by a small aperture beside each of the twelve hour markers, the filled one being the current month, which is an unusually elegant way of displaying something that normally demands a sub-dial. The off-centre disc gives a second time zone against the 24-hour ring.

In Rolesor, the watch sits between tool and dress. The gold bezel and centre links push it towards formal, the forty-two millimetre steel case and Oyster bracelet pull the other way, and the black dial mediates. Certified to a precision of between minus two and plus two seconds a day.

Mint, 2020, offered as a full set. A second hand Sky-Dweller, bought for the mechanism rather than the badge.

Every watch is authenticated by an independent watchmaker before it changes hands, never by us. Viewing by appointment at our Collins Street boutique in Melbourne, insured delivery Australia-wide. We buy Rolex outright and source specific references on request.