This is our new series: Same or Different. Something we all know from Sesame Street but this time its... Well, it's the same.

There is not much difference between a dial made of Onyx stone and a dial black lacquered? Well, while both look somehow black, there are anyway some relevant differences:

• An onyx dial is more sensitive to physical impacts: when it is broken it is impossible to repair.
• The black lacquered dial is more sensitive to chemical impacts: when it is exposed to humidity, brightness, gases or radiation it reacts -- to the good or bad.
• Onyx could be polished and becomes as glassy and it will stay like that forever and never change. The lacquered dial is touched by time -- more or less, sooner or later.
• Onyx is truly black -- complete absorption of light --, something that is never seen in lacquered dials, that are a dark gray or blue that tends towards black, but never reaches the point of totally absorbing the incoming light. And thats the reason why it is so alluring: you can dream into it, literally.

So, the real thing is the stone dial, the Onyx: rarer because of the fact they were more expensive to make -- back then several attempts were necessary to just make one dial, because the stones broke while being cut -- and during years of being used chances are high it broke and is lost. So the remaining become even rarer. However, just physical shocks could break it. All else could not harm a beautiful Onyx stone dial and it will withstand time until eternity in absolute light absorbing beauty -- the opposite to a diamond.

See the other parts in this series here: #SameOrDifferent