Swatch Gaet Review

My first modern 41mm Swatch and another "used" one. It was only £4 again, but this watch was very well used indeed.

I spent almost 10 minutes getting the scratches off the crystal with Brasso, but there's still a couple of deeper ones to do something about later. Why Brasso? Because it works, that's why, and it's a long established way of polishing acrylic crystals from decades before these little ripoff tubes of PolyWatch were all the rage.

As you can see, the dial is a sunburst black with red indices, skeleton hands which don't obscure the day/date complication, and a red seconds hand which, in this case, doesn't hit the markers exactly on the way up but only only the way down.

I have no idea what the battery was supposed to be for this Swatch. It was either a 390 or a 389, so I used an AG10 from one of those cheap multipacks of batteries. It's the right size and works fine. If it burns out the movement due to being alkaline not a fancy Renata lithium cell, I don't even care.

The strap was absolutely worn out, but I'll be saving the buckle. A new official "Gaet" strap is about £23, so I won't be pursuing that option. A 19mm black rubber strap from AliExpress is £2 or less.

The previous owner cut the strap short which was damned annoying, but given the price, I'll not make a fuss about it. It is a shame, but with the rest of the wear on the strap which has rubbed the pattern bald, I was never buying this watch for the strap anyway.

I can just about squeeze into what's left, and with it being silicone rubber, the strap is still ridiculously comfortable despite making me look in this picture as if I'm a big fat fattie.

Outside in daylight, the sunburst black dial and polished crystal make things less legible than I would like, but as I only bought this watch to see how a new 41mm gents Swatch would fit me, I'll not be wearing this much.

The black and red are nice but not really my colours, and it makes the watch a bit too "youthy" and "masculine" in a clichéd black, red, and grey 1990's interior decor kind of way.