Yema, Lip, BWC

[andy_s]

Just some pics - not mine I'm afraid but you don't see these too often - or at least I haven't.


This one looks charming with a bit of scuff:



Here's the BWC on its own:



These are hefty beasts - check out that case on the right:
Yema Superman & Navy:


And some more Yemas:




And finally the Lip:


Anyway, hope you enjoy - my favourite here is the BWC ~ whoever they are!

Andy

[cyclopath]

Yeah, Andy, the BWC is cool. The large dial / thin bezel combo is hard to beat for aesthetics I reckon. Lovely domed crystal too.
The Lip is pretty cool too, as are most of those vintage super-compressor cased watches.

[river rat]

I like the two beast that's a interesting lock for the bezel ring on that one if that's what it is.And that Navy has one thick case and the other yema the chrono I like to.The lip compressor is nice to.

[andy_s]

Originally Posted by cyclopath

Yeah, Andy, the BWC is cool. The large dial / thin bezel combo is hard to beat for aesthetics I reckon. Lovely domed crystal too.
The Lip is pretty cool too, as are most of those vintage super-compressor cased watches.

Those are the same points I liked about the BWC, the dome looks like quite a pronounced one too - the crown is a solid affair as well by the looks of it. More Jules Vern than Jacques Cousteau and very chic, especially with the scruffy bezel for some reason. Very versatile too.

[MvR]

I'm with you on the bezel. I love those thin 60s bezels. Somehow, they tend to add some width to the dial.

A guy down the street where I live, owns a jewelery shop. He also sells watches. BWC is one of the brands he's selling. Non of the modern BWCs what they used to be! These 'old school' BWC watches are far more attractive!

Menno

[JDS (Ohio)]

Originally Posted by cyclopath

... The large dial / thin bezel combo is hard to beat for aesthetics I reckon. Lovely domed crystal too.
.

Same for me, the BWC rocks. I like the fact that its dial is so big for the case; the thinner bezel is something you just don't see on divers in recent years.

[Ludi]

Originally Posted by andy_s

And finally the Lip:

Pretty funny as both the watch and pic are mine, background is an aqualung t-shirt reedition bought from WUS forum ... well, I'm not a stranger anymore here

For the story, I made the photo above for a spanish watch forum photo contest.... but no prize awarded

This Nautic Ski, caliber R184 or R148 dato, is far undervalued (great models are sold for around 250/ 300 euros)...





.... but a great catch for any vintage diver lover...





.. so jump in

rgds

[andy_s]

Very sorry Ludi - I missed your reply and have just seen it.

You should have had your prize, that's a smashing photo there, I wish I was so skilful, thanks for the new ones too.

I was looking for a Yema Y11 but there's nothing I can find out about them, I've made a few enquiries so we'll see what crops up.

Here's one:


(Rich/watchblogspot)

And before you ask, I don't know...


(ETA - Nice Tropic too Ludi)

Another Y11, different scales:



It would seem that the original one at the top was for timing motorbikes, it gave an 'average time', but I'm not sure how that works. Here's an extract:

[andy_s]

Well, I've managed to track one down, in fact the very one pictured that has been restored by Rich Askham and features on his site. I couldn't find any other examples so had to be 'direct'.

Should get it in my grubby paws by the new year.

Not much more info on them, dated either 1977 or 1980/81 (in '82 the father passed the company over to his son who didn't do such a good job against the tide of digital watches then appearing. Yema was then bought and operated by Seiko from '88 to about 2005. They went bankrupt in 2008 but have been re-bought and have reinvented themselves slightly).

Obviously part of a small series of similarly cased 'sous marine' watches - this one in particular has the 'meangraf' function which works out your average speed given time and distance. Apparently it was common for functions of the 'meangraf' / 'flygraf' / 'navygraf' to be interchanged.

I went back to old catalogues of the era (Chronosport were the distributers in the UK in the early seventies but I can't see who was the distributer after this time), but with no great joy. The people the other side of the channel don't seem to know much about them either, despite Yema having quite a following.

The movement is a French Ebauche 4611. It's not a supercompressor despite the appearence but I don't have a twin-crown nor an internal bezel in my small pile of watches so thought this would tick quite a few boxes in addition to the unusual style of the watch and case.

While looking for this I also happened across a few Yema bipoles for sale, if anyone is interested where then let me know.

To be continued...