I just tried on a standard sistem51 and it felt like I wasn't wearing a watch as it's so light. I'm not sure how durable it would be as a proper beater. I have fond memories of my first watch, a swatch that was pretty much indestructible. Until it wasn't

 

Have had mine for a few months now with fair amount of wrist time and love it!

The 42mm case size didn't bother me at all and I have pretty slim wrists and don't own anything else over 39mm.

The feather weight and relatively short lug-to-lug make it wear much smaller.

Try before you buy before judging case sizes folks, numbers on paper often mean much less on the wrist.

Also, you'll find that most complaints about a Sistem51 "falling to bits" or "not working" are from people who didn't read the instructions to learn it needs to be manually wound ANTI-CLOCKWISE.

With a 90hr power reserve it doesn't often need a manual wind so this gets easily overlooked!

 

Thanks for the winding information, because I'm sure we would have missed that also - never in my 57 years have I seen one that winds backwards.

It's funny, but I gave two of my friends, who are twins, those two Hodinkee Swatch watches for Christmas, and they loved them and can wear matching watches together. Then I gave the Glycine Combat Pepsi 3-hand that I mentioned to my daughter's boyfriend for Christmas. I get too attached to watches that I've have worn and hoard them, even if they are cheap and I have nicer ones from Rolex and Omega, so it's easier giving them up as gifts if I don't try it on...

Then a few weeks later bought a 3rd Swatch Hodinkee 1986 for myself, but it sits in the safe unworn. I got them to send it with a gift note for my son just in case, and I might add it to the birth year Speedy Pro 3572.50 that he's also getting for college graduation this May.

 

A Breitling / Heuer / Hamilton Calibre 11 / 12/ 14 winds widdershins until you get used to it. Luckily the auto-wind is good enough that just getting mine out of the box is enough to get it started so it was a few weeks before I discovered the bass ackwards winding direction.

 

Yep that's the kicker with the Swatch too, it can be worn for weeks before ever needing a wind.

When it stops the hapless user winds away in the wrong direction achieving nothing.

User then puts it back on the wrist which is usually enough motion to make it run for a bit then stop again.

Then come the forum posts flooding in... what a pile of junk it is, needs to be sent back, why don't they make the movement serviceable, how Swatch Group is the devil of horology, etc.