I’ve written recently about watches from the French company Lip, and this time it’s a watch from another French company, Yema.

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Yema was formed in Besançon France in 1948 by Henry Louis Belmont who employed a team of young watch technicians with the intention of putting French watchmaking on the map. Things went well, and by the late 1960’s Yema were already producing 500,000 watches per year and were the first French watch company to produce a chronometer rated calibre.

The 1970’s were good years for Yema who produced a number of popular (and now collectible) watches, most notably a range of Valjoux powered chronographs including the Flygraf, Navygraf and Yachtingraf.

They also produced a line of popular divers watches such as this Superman model which has a look of the Heuer diver with French roots which I wrote about recently (see that post here).

Production had been increasing steadily over the years and had reached 2 million per year by the early 1980’s. Henry Louis Belmont stepped aside in 1982 and passed control of the company across to his son, after which “the wheels came off” you might say.

The company was quickly sold and though the brand name remained intact, the company changed hands several times over the next 20 years. The quality of the watches quickly deteriorated, the brand image suffered, and production decreased to just over 100,000 units per year.

It looked like the end of the road for Yema when the company filed for bankruptcy at the end of 2008. However, all was not lost as a French company, Ambre, stepped in and purchased the brand, making it a wholly French owned company again.

The watch in this post is from the Sous Marine range which was first introduced in 1953, though this one is from the 1970’s. This model  has a rotating inner bezel which is turned using the upper crown and inside is a 17 jewel, French Ebauche (FE) cal. 4611 automatic.

The watch arrived in running condition but badly needed a service. As you may have seen in the first picture the lume in the hands had literally turned to dust and distributed itself across the entire watch.

After servicing the movement it was on to the cosmetic issues. The hands were relumed and the dust was carefully removed from the dial, inner bezel and inside the case which finished the job.

I’m intrigued by the second scale on the dial on this watch. “Temps Ecoule” means running time and “Moyenne” means average, but I’ve got no idea how you would use it. I don’t think it is related to the scale on the inner bezel but I could be wrong. If anyone can tell me what this scale is for and how to use it, I’d be much obliged.

If you would like to read a more detailed history of the Yema brand and see more of their models, check out this post on Harry Bishop’s excellent blog Seiko Champion.

You can also see the current Yema lineup here, which still includes a sprinkling of automatic models I’m pleased to say.

Rich.

** Many thanks to Dave Noke for letting me feature his watch on the blog. **

This diver from Heuer is known as the 844/3, and was a popular model in the 1980s.

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Already an established name in the chronograph field, in the late 1970’s Heuer decided to test the water with a divers watch (pardon the pun!). Rather than set up an entire production facility they chose to rebrand an existing model from the French producer, Monnin. These early watches were fitted with an automatic Felsa movement and the only thing ‘Heuer’ about the watch was the dial, as the case and movement were still signed G. Monnin. For more information and pictures of the Heuer/Monnin diver, check out this post on Jarl Fr. Rehn-Erichsen’s blog Classic Heuers.

When the experiment proved to be a success, Heuer decided to develop its own version of the watch and switch production back to Switzerland. Rather than continuing with the Felsa movements, the watches were fitted with ETA calibres, and other models were added to the range; namely quartz and ladies versions of the watch. Here is a catalogue image from 1981 showing the models that were available.

Source: AutaviaPassion

In September 1985 TAG (Techniques d’Avant Garde) bought Heuer and from then on all watches were badged TAG Heuer. The 844 remained in the model lineup but was rebranded as the TAG Heuer 1000, a model that proved popular and remained in the range for many years. Even today the influence of the 1000 can still be seen in some of  the current Aquaracer models.

It’s hard to date the watch in this post exactly, but it must have been produced between 1981 and 1985 as it is fitted with an ETA Cal. 2872, and only has Heuer printed on the dial.

There wasn’t anything wrong with the watch this time, the movement just needed a service. As the original hands weren’t in the best condition, rather than restore them, the owner preferred to replace them with sword hands. The new hands weren’t an exact match and needed to be adjusted to fit properly, but the result was worth the effort I think.

You may have noticed that a Heuer transfer has been added to the rotor of this watch.  As the condition of the movement is much better than the rotor,  my guess is that the original rotor was damaged at some time and was replaced.

Rich.

** Thanks to Anders Bunes for letting me feature his watch on the blog, and to Marius Jensen for providing information and pictures for this post. **

Just to keep life interesting I’ve picked up a few quirky vintage diving watches lately, the first being this Le Jour Jurvac…

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Although Le Jour started trading in 1965, they aren’t a particularly well known brand. They had a number of solid looking chronograph models over the years with good quality Valjoux movements, but seemed to slip into obscurity during the 1980’s.

One of the Le Jour models which you still see from time to time is this PVD coated chronograph which bears more than a striking resemblance to a model by Orfina/Porsche Design…

Getting back to the subject of this post, the first thing to notice is that has a very solid one piece case, which means the watch must be opened by removing the glass. The second thing to notice is the text on the back which reads “Vacuum sealed with Argon”…

Argon is a noble or inert gas, and the principle behind using it inside watch cases is that it is a completely dry gas which contains no humidity. This means that there is no chance of condensation ever forming inside the case due to temperature changes and causing corrosion to the dial, hands or movement. Cases filled with Argon are still a feature for a number of watch companies, Sinn being one of them.

Being from the late 1960’s or early 70’s this watch must have been serviced in the past, so I wasn’t expecting a face full of Argon on removing the crystal. I knew from the dial that it had a 17 jewel automatic calibre but I didn’t know what to expect, so once inside I was pleased to see an ETA cal. 2452. It wasn’t running, but after a service it looked much better, and started right up…

Cosmetically the watch was pretty good. The crystal was scratched all over, and being mineral glass I had no choice but to have another one cut. I also relumed the hands and cleaned the dial before recasing.

As you can imagine I don’t have much spare Argon knocking around, or a vacuum chamber… but I think it will be ok!

I was very surprised to find out that Le Jour are actually still in business, but they seem to be a shadow of their former selves. If you want to see their current offerings, you can check out their website here… you have been warned!

Rich.

Another model from Aquastar, this time one of their divers watches, the Benthos 500…

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Produced between 1962 and 1972, this was Aquastar’s first diving watch, the model name “Benthos” coming from Greek for ‘the bottom of the sea’ and “500″ being the depth in meters to which the watch is water resistant. When first released, the Benthos was the first diving watch to use round as opposed to flat gaskets which significantly improved water resistance.

There were several changes made to the Benthos throughout its production run, compare the following watch with mine and you’ll spot some subtle differences…

The case is wider, it has a different crown, the bezel insert is different (possibly made from a different material?) and there are a couple of small differences on the dial; no “SA” under the Aquastar Geneve logo and the ‘Swiss Made’ label is under the 6 marker, not between the markers.

The watch was made with two different calibres, both from A. Schild, the cal. AS1902 and the cal. AS2162. Both are 17 jewel automatic calibres, the main difference being the rate at which they run; the AS1902 at 21,600bph and the AS2162 at 28,800bph. (The one in my watch is a AS2162.)

Both calibres were modified to include a minute timer, you may have noticed the extra hand in the first picture. The timer is started using the pusher, which when pressed returns the minute counter hand back to the 12 o’ clock position. It then moves in sync with the minute hand to time a maximum of 60 minutes.

My watch arrived with more problems than I was expecting, though it was running, the minute timer didn’t work or reset properly and the dial and hands were in much worse condition than I thought…

A faulty minute timer seems to be a common problem with these watches, and when you see how it works, it’s not hard to understand why.

Here is a picture of the movement with the dial removed so you can see the minute counter mechanism….

The first thing to notice is that the whole movement is cased in a solid steel ring, the pusher lever is mounted on this ring and contacts the rack mounted on the movement.

When the pusher is pressed the rack turns and rotates the minute counter wheel back to zero. For the next 60 minutes the minute counter wheel and cannon pinion (on which the minute hand is mounted) rotate together until the mechanism is returned back to the state above.

The minute counter wheel sits between the hour wheel (removed in the picture above) and the cannon pinion with a friction washer between the two.

The friction washer performs two functions, firstly when the pusher is pressed it allows the minute counter wheel to slide over cannon pinion until the hand is back at zero and secondly, it provides the tension required to bind the minute counter wheel and cannon pinion making them turn together while the timer is running.

As you can imagine after almost 40 years of use, there is a good chance that the brass minute counter wheel has worn or the brass friction washer has lost some of it’s essential tension, causing the minute counter to slip and lose time. My watch had exactly that problem, but after spending some time on it, I managed to get it working again.

With the movement serviced and the timer fixed, it was on to the cosmetic issues. After removing the old lume from the dial and repainting the markers, I relumed the hands, repainted the minute counter and second hands and finally cleaned the case…

Rich.

This watch is one of Seiko most popular vintage divers… well almost! The 6105 series of divers watches were produced between 1968 and 1977 and if you’re familiar with them you’ll know instantly that something isn’t right here, the case looks all wrong…

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Giving it a quick look over on arrival I presumed it was the internals from a 6105 diver transplanted into a newer case, so I set it to one side for attention later. When I came back to it and turned it over I was very surprised to see the straight brushed finish of a regular 6105 case on the back…

Closer inspection revealed that the case was an original, but had been ground down to give it a much slimmer profile. Apparently this practice was quite common in SE Asia during the 80’s and 90’s, perhaps it was considered too bulky for everyday use, who knows?

I have to say that the finish was very good and almost symmetrical, just the area around the crown guard had traces of the grinder still showing through…

As you probably noticed in the first picture, the dial and hands were badly aged. As it had been heavily modified already, the owner was more interesting in having a presentable watch to wear, so I serviced the movement and replaced the dial, hands, glass and bezel insert.

Here’s the result…

… and here is how it would have started life, quite a difference!

Rich.

** Many thanks to Menno van Rij for letting me feature his watches on the blog. **