What Are Stone Dial Watches, and How Are They Made?

In the past year, watches with stone dials have seen increasing interest from collectors around the world. So, what are stone dial watches? Simply a watch where the traditional metal dial, which is usually made from brass or gold, is replaced by a very thin layer of beautiful stone.

To make a dial out of hard stone, the craftsperson needs to cut and polish an incredibly thin and precise layer of the stone which captures the pattern fact they want the dial to display. Stone dials are always unique, as the stone used to create the dials is natural, and it is therefore impossible to find two with identical patterns. 

The dial must be thin to ensure that the watch doesn’t become uncomfortably heavy. This is incredibly difficult to do without breaking the stone, and it does mean that watches with stone dials tend to be very fragile. The high failure rates of creating these very thin stone dials means that these watches are inevitably very expensive.

The first stone dial watches were released by Piaget in the 1960s, and were sold as a new type of dress watch. They often had gold cases, a simple two hand design, and came on either leather straps or ornate solid metal bracelets brackets.

The Different Types of Stone Dials

There are a huge range of stone dials that are available to the collector covering almost every colour of the rainbow. Below you’ll find some examples:

Vintage Stone Dial Watches

To spark your curiosity, we’ll highlight three brands to explore the vintage stone dial watches of. Piaget, Audemars Piguet, and Rolex.  

As the first manufacturer to make stone dial watches, it’s probably unsurprising that the largest range of stone dial watches can be found from Piaget. Of the three brands mentioned above, they are probably the lowest priced; however, that is starting to change as collectors wise-up to their rarity and uniqueness. They are typically time-only, relatively small case-sizes for modern tastes, and come in the most beautiful array of colours. Subdial often has one or two for sale and at a fair price.

Audemars Piguet stone dial watches are rarer. Again, they are small to modern tastes, almost always time-only, and you can find a very nice example of a vintage dress watch with a stone dial from Audemars Piguet for a lot less money than you’d need to spend on a modern watch from the brand.

Never one to be left out, Rolex also has also made stone dial watches. These are very hard to find, and often command very high prices. The day-date has often been the range that Rolex has used to explore interesting dials, and it’s where most of their experiments with stone dials were undertaken. If you look hard, and have a large budget, then you can find day-dates with onyx, lapis lazuli, and tiger’s eye dials. Even rarer (and one of Ed’s grail watches) is the yellow gold submariner that they made in very limited quantities with a lapis lazuli dial. Stunning!

Some fantastic Piaget stone dial watches displayed by @watchclog in his interview with Subdial. Link at bottom of blog

Modern Stone Dials

For those of you that are more comfortable buying modern watches than vintage, there are a few manufacturers that still make watches with these rare dials. Omega, Rolex and Jaeger-LeCoultre all make watches with meteorite dials. Meteorite is debris from space (usually a combination of iron and nickel) that arrives on planet earth in small chunks. It has a beautiful silver-y pattern when sliced into a watch dial.

Rolex have continued to experiment with stone dials in their day-date range, and have recently released a hard-to-get day-date with a Eisenkiesel (which means dark pebble) dial, which is really striking.

At the more accessible end of the market, Christopher Ward have released a moonphase watch with a beautiful aventurine dial, which you can see hands-on here. Great stone dial watches can also be found in abundance from Louis Erard. 

Some of the most interesting stone dial watches available at the moment (at least to me) are made by Sartory Billard. Each watch is custom-made for the customer, and it’s possible to change almost every feature of the watch. The brand says their watches are typically between £3-5k. Here is the range of stone dials that they will make for their customers. The brand’s instagram provides some fantastic (and drool-worthy) inspiration. You can find it here. 

All of the stones that Sartory Billard will make dials from

Where To Buy Stone Dial Watches

WatchbrothersLondon, who we interviewed here, occasionally have stone dials for sale, check them out. Somlo, in London’s Burlington Arcade, usually has the best range of stone dial watches in the UK. If you haven’t visited, it is a must for watch-lovers. The staff are welcoming, and the range of watches unparalleled. If you want to see more pictures of stone dial watches, check out @watchclog on Instagram, and his interview in subdial here.

As always, we encourage you to buy from high-quality sellers, and we are always here to help our members with advice on potential purchases.

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