The Genta Gefica is a ground breaking watch. Unlike modern luxury timepieces featuring precious metals such as gold and platinum, the case features bronze as its surface material. It's the first luxury watch to feature bronze in a watch case. Bronze is an age old metal used by civilisations before the discovery of steel. This is a soft metal that has a tendency to change colour or oxidize with time.

In the Gefica, Gerald Genta used a combination of bronze and titanium for the case, the latter being the harder metal that houses the movement and protects it from the harsh oxidisation of bronze. It's the success of this isolation process and metal combination that allowed Genta to launch this watch. Otherwise, if it were a pure bronze case, the movement inside the watch would be compromised by the oxides coming from the bronze over time.

The Gefica is a big watch but engineered not to feel ungainly on the wrist with the gentle curvature of the crystal and lugs hugging the wrist well. It feels smaller than it looks on the wrist. Clearly the biggest draw of this watch is the bronze elements and its old world design rivet look of its titanium. This will be a watch that will have collectors sitting clearly in two camps - the detractors or supporters. The soft bronze metal will make the watch a serious risk to dings and dents as shown in the images here of the watch here (owned by a renowned collector for over a year). On the positive side, no two Geficas will look alike as the aging and the patina tones will differ between owners who are found in different environments because this effects the oxidisation.

The Gefica clearly is a masculine watch due to its size and design features such as faux rivets. It may look rugged but it's clearly refined as a luxury watch with its retrograde hands and jumping hours and high level of finish on its dial. I found myself enjoying the watch on my wrist both from its familiar dial layout as well as its unfamiliar case design and material. I think this watch will probably single-handedly return the Gerald Genta into the mainstream as one of the exciting and innovative watch makers today.