Just a quick one because there's not a lot to say about this Swatch or any other Swatch really. Everybody had forgotten this brand even existed (except as a historical thing and overarching group) until the MoonSwatch.
This is a Swatch Irony Balise YGS4005 from 1997 (as it says on the dial).
What is a Balise? I have no idea. At first, I thought it was the name of a paradise holiday destination which I've never been to, but then a Google search revealed it to be something to do with French railway signals. How exceptionally dull.
A balise /bəˈliːz/ is an electronic beacon or transponder placed between the rails of a railway as part of an automatic train protection (ATP) system. The French word balise is used to distinguish these beacons from other kinds of beacons.
I got this watch secondhand from eBay (again), and it only came with half the original leather strap which had broken off. I saved the buckle, but unfortunately it's too wide for the replacement rubber strap.
The nifty thing about this Swatch is the date complication which puts a red dot in the correct position for each day on the circumference of the dial.
It's not very legible being red on black, and the date takes until 2.30am to change, so although it looks cool, it's not particularly useful or practical.
As you can see, this is an aluminium Irony with 30m water resistance (probably) and it takes a Renata 394 (or SR936SW) according to the dimensions of the battery specified. I've never seen a battery's details put like that before, so I hope I've bought the right one. I have a 377 shimmed with blu-tack inside at the moment just to test it and it seems to work okay.
There are a couple of scratches on the crystal, plus some very minor wear and tear to the paint on the case, but it's okay for the £4 it cost me. I gave it the usual wipe over with an antibacterial wipe, and a quick polish with useless PolyWatch just to make it shiny.
I had some trouble freeing the seconds hand which kept sticking at the 30 minute mark, but I passed a magnet over the dial a few times (you can hear the cogs moving when you do this), and whatever was stuck is now unstuck. Just a little trick I picked up when it comes to Swatch chronographs which also worked here too.
The dimensions are 37.5mm x 43mm (lug-to-lug), 11.6mm thick, and the rubber strap is a standard 17mm (flaring to 19mm) AliExpress Swatch replacement.