A gilt dial is a watch dial whose gold-coloured numerals, logo, text and minute track are bare metal, left uncovered while the background is coloured, usually black. Nothing gold is printed. Gilt dials came before matte dials and were made from the 1930s until about the middle of the 1960s.
How is a gilt dial made?
Work starts with a plain brass dial blank. It is polished until it shines like a mirror. Next, the markings are printed in the usual way, but in clear lacquer, so the dial still looks blank. The dial then goes into a galvanic bath, where the background colour is put on by electroplating. The colour does not stick to the lacquered areas. Those areas stay as bright, bare brass. So the gold lettering sits below the coloured top layer, not on top of it.
Why did gilt dials disappear?
From the mid-1960s onward, gilt dials became rarer. The matte dials that replaced them had white printing. They took over because they were easier to make. Gilt dials were not one maker’s habit. Many brands besides Rolex used them. Those brands included Heuer, Audemars Piguet, Longines, Patek Philippe, Tudor, Omega and Universal Genève.
Not to be confused with
Modern dials described as ‘gilt-tone’ are made another way. Gold-coloured paint is pad-printed on top of a coloured base dial. On a true gilt dial, the gold comes from the metal underneath, showing through the darker coating. On a gilt-tone dial, the gold is paint added to the surface. So the markings on a gilt-tone dial sit on top of the colour, while on a gilt dial they lie beneath it.
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