That YEMA watch is lovely. Can you still buy them?
Yes, sort of. Mine’s an original mechanical movement model, from around 1972/3, it’s actually French, and the movement was also used by Raymond Weil and Breitling, if the info I’ve seen is correct. In the 80’s they got taken over by Seiko, who they had some sort of deal with, after the original owner died, and his heir couldn’t be arsed with the company. The watches became just flashy fashion watches, then around 2003 the company was bought back and became independent again, but got into difficulties in 2008, and became part of the Swatch group. They still do a version of the Rallygraf, very similar to mine, but it uses a Citizen movement nowadays. Not cheap, they’re around €350-400, as far as I know, but if you’re looking for something a bit different in a chronograph, worth checking out.
I hadn’t worn mine for donkey’s years, it had an issue that someone said they’d fixed, but it didn’t seem to be right, the chrono buttons didn’t seem to function quite right, and I bought other watches. I gave it to someone to look at, and they quoted me £260 to service it!
Then I took it into a branch of Christopher David in town, and they gave it to a tame watch-maker in Swindon they use, who quoted £140, I said yes, and he had it sorted in two days. Works really nicely, keeps pretty good time, plus/minus about a minute every couple of weeks.
Might be worth hunting around the ‘net if you’re interested, you might pick up an original in good nick, especially if you speak or understand French! 😀