Yema Navygraf Marine Nationale

Last year I acquired a number of micro-brand watches and now have enough of them to start putting up some reviews. I’ll start with my Yema Navygraf Marine Nationale (MN). Yema is a storied French brand, recently revived.

I won this last year in one of @HotWatchChick69 ’s charity auctions. It was generously donated by @TimeJunkie with its original two watch bands and one extra Barton rubber strap.

The watch is very well made and finished with a clean deep navy, almost black dial. The bezel action is good, not quite and Omega feel, but easy and robust. The look is balanced and extremely easy to read, the hour and minute hands are only distinguished by length and not shape, which is unusual for a diver. Maybe not ideal for actual diving, which I don’t do, but it looks different than other divers, which I like. It has an ‘in-house’ designed movement, something unusual for a sub-$1k watch.

Accuracy is fair at about +6 seconds per day, within Yema’s tolerance claims, but something that causes me to reset it each time I wear it. We will see the reliability over time, but so far accuracy is stable and there is a good feel to the wind and stem action. This has a 19mm band width, but as it came with 3 bands, it has earned a ‘strap monster’ place in my collection. The looks and feel on the different straps are a part of my experience with the watch. It was first sent to me on a Barton rubber strap, not an OG strap. This one is very nice looking and comfortable, a good trait of these Barton straps. However as is common for these straps, its hard to buckle and use the keeper.

The next was the MN elastic strap. This one looks great and is the recommended strap for water sport. There’s a real trick to fastening the clasp on this one, but fairly easy to do once mastered. It could easily live on the watch all the time, although I always worry an elastic strap can wear.

Finally there’s the stainless steel band. This one is comfortable once on, but does show that it was built to a ‘price point’. There’s a slight rattle to the bracelet and the links have a sharp feel to their edges. The clasp is a lock down, but is hard to buckle/unbuckle. It does have some micro-adjustments though, a good thing so easy to get a nice fit. Overall, it gives a very different, casual but upscale look. It’s my wife’s favorite look, and she’s a fellow connoisseur, with better taste than me!

Overall, I’m happy with this. It is an in house tribute of an historic watch for the brand, and in many ways feels like a modern build of a watch from the last century. It is robust enough to be a daily wear and the interesting straps give a good variety of looks. It will require a daily time check though, to keep up with the modern digital world. So, end of the day, you are not getting an inexpensive Tudor or Oris with this watch, but rather an interesting piece with a good history and quirks of its own.