A watch is one of the few things you can wear every day for decades. It survives on small habits, not heroic interventions. Five minutes a month is genuinely all of it.
Every day
Wipe the case with a soft dry cloth at the end of the day. Your skin produces oils, the cloth takes them off, and that is the whole job.
Never put household cleaner, alcohol or perfume near the case or the strap. They strip the finish, and the damage does not come back.
The strap
Leather is skin. It needs to breathe.
- Wipe it with a barely damp cloth, then dry it properly.
- Once a month, work a small drop of leather balm in with your fingers.
- Keep it away from salt water, radiators, and hours of direct sun.
- Never soak it.
Replace the strap when the lining wears through. Ours use standard spring bars, so any aftermarket leather or NATO strap of the right width will fit — measure the gap between the lugs, or ask any watchmaker to do it while you wait.
Water
Treat every watch we sell as splash resistant only. Rain is fine. Washing your hands is fine. A caught shower on the way to the car is fine.
Swimming, showers, baths, hot tubs and diving are not. Heat and pressure ruin a watch faster than anything else you can do to one, and it is the single most common way a good watch dies young.
The battery
Expect two to three years from a cell.
When the second hand starts moving in two-second jumps instead of one, the battery is on its way out. That is the watch telling you, not a fault. Take it to any watchmaker — replacement takes about ten minutes and costs very little. Have them reseal it while it is open.
Storage
Face up, out of direct sunlight, in a soft pouch or the box it arrived in. Avoid a drawer full of magnets, and avoid the bathroom — humidity gets into everything eventually.
If you are not going to wear it for a few months, that is fine. It will keep.
If something goes wrong
Email support@bypatina.co with your order number and a couple of photographs. If a watch arrives faulty or stops running within 30 days, we cover return postage and you choose a replacement or a refund. The details are on our Return Policy.
For anything outside that window, we will still tell you honestly what we think is wrong and whether it is worth fixing.