The Top 7 Stone Dials That Are Rocking Horology With Nature’s Timeless Allure
These dials add aesthetics by incorporating natural stone dials adding beauty, colour, variations, and textures making each timepiece one-of-a-kind with a distinctive character
A watch’s dial is the face, a canvas not only for telling time but also for complications, appeal, and functionality. Timepiece makers have started to give new colours other than black, blue with a varied variety of textures defining a watch’s style, giving it its own personality. Other than just colours, and textures, most timepiece makers are now adding ornamental stones in their novelties. Common stones used include lapis lazuli, malachite, onyx, tiger’s eye, and meteorite, with their rich colours and patterns creating a stylish and exclusive statement that resonates with collectors. Let us look at some of the finest timepieces with unique stone dials that should be in every collector’s collection.
Rolex Perpetual Cosmograph Daytona – Tiger Iron
The Oyster Perpetual GMT-Master II has an 18k Everose gold and features a dial crafted from tiger iron. This rock has been used for the first time by Rolex, and is composed of tiger’s eye, red jasper, and hematite, and has a mix of golden and orange hues. Found mostly in limited deposits in Western Australia and South Africa, thus, making it even rarer compared to other ornamental stones.
Roger Dubuis Excalibur Blacklight Spin-Stone Monobalancier – Spin-Stones
Spin-Stones from Roger Dubuis innovation consisting of synthetic, curved sapphire stones that are coated with super-lumiNova. Used in the Excalibur Blacklight Monobalancier watch, they are arranged from red to blue in a colour gradient on the bezel and flange. The stones’ unique shape and hue intensifies under giving them a distinctive curved and angled cut and appearance.
Audemars Piguet Code 11.59 Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon – Green Malachite
A green-coloured copper carbonate hydroxide mineral, Malachite, often called as the stone of transformation, is one of the first ores for producing copper metal. It is commonly used as a gemstone or sculptural material that is often cut into beads for jewellery. The timepiece has a dial crafted from green malachite stone and has a wavy texture.
Girard-Perregaux 1966 40mm Infinity Edition – Black Onyx
A gemstone coming from Chalcedony, Black onyx is a silicate mineral, mostly made of calcite (similar to marble and granite). It has a black colour from natural impurities like iron and carbon or, more commonly, from dyeing treatments. Its chemical composition is primarily silicon dioxide, making it a member of the quartz family. The dial is made from black onyx and is crafted to fit inside the circular case.
Moser & Cie. Endeavour Centre Seconds Vantablack – Vantablack
Composed of carbon nanostructures and absorbing 99.965% of light, Vantablack is an extremely sensitive and delicate material to work with. It uses a specialised chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process, and nanotube is an ultra-thin cylinder of pure carbon. When light strikes this “forest,” it gets trapped in the spaces between the tubes, bouncing around and being absorbed rather than reflecting, which makes the material appear almost perfectly black. This red gold has the dial crafted in vantablack.
Zenith Chronomaster Sport Meteorite – Meteorite
Made from slices of a real iron-nickel meteorite that has fallen to Earth, the primary composition of a meteorite dial is 90% iron with a variable percentage of nickel, along with trace elements like iridium, chrome, and gallium. After cutting the meteorite, it is etched with nitric acid to reveal its unique, natural Widmanstätten patterns – interwoven crystalline lines that make each dial one-of-a-kind. This watch gets a grey meteorite dial with a three sub dial set up for the chronograph.
Gerald Charles Maestro 2.0 Ultra-Thin Lapis Lazuli – Lapis Lazuli
A metamorphic rock composed primarily of the mineral lazurite that gives it its characteristic blue colour and makes up 25-40% of the stone. It also contains other minerals, such as calcite (which creates white streaks) and pyrite (which provides golden flecks and sparkle) with other minerals like sodalite, hauyne, and diopside can also be present in smaller quantities. Before the creation of the dial, the selection of the stone is of equal importance. It takes roughly 24 hours for the dial to be made; each dial is cut and polished from a 5 mm thick disc to reach a final thickness of 0.55 mm. The natural beauty of lapis lazuli is revealed as the dials are polished, both by hand and by machine.