Once again, I have had the privilege to work with one of my favorite brands in Yema. Back at the end of November, I was fortunate enough to start a working relationship with them, receiving the Yema Superman Skin Diver for a hands-on review like the one you are reading. In addition to that review, I also made a history article going over the long and impressive history of this storied brand. I highly recommend reading those articles before this one, as they give great context to the history of the brand, as well as my general thoughts on them as a watch manufacturer.

Now I won’t go into great detail on the history of Yema, but I will do a quick recap to bring us up to speed before we head into the review of the Rallygraf. Henry Luis Belmont founded Yema in 1948 in the aftermath of the Second World War. Henry and the Yema company would be instrumental in the automation of French watchmaking as well as the advent of lifestyle tool watches that would come into play in the 50s and 60s. In that, we saw chronographs for racers, dive watches for divers, and even watches that shoot for the stars.

In the late 60s, Yema had become the leading exporter of watches in France, exporting just over 400.000 units. In that time, we also saw the birth of the Yachtingraf and the Superman, both of which are still present in Yema’s offerings. In the 80s, Richard Mille took over International development, and the Yema Spationaute 1 became the first French watch in space. After a few ownership changes in that time and as we head into the 21st century, the brand ended up in the hands of Ambre France, which bought it from Seiko in 2009. To this day, they are still the owners of Yema and have done a fantastic job positioning it in the entry level price bracket while providing a quiality and pleasurable alternative to more mainstream mainstayes in that price bracket.

Now, the Rallygraf is a collection I have always been in two minds about, however after being able to experience it, my mind is fully made up. This watch rules. This is the black Alpine cup edition, the Alpine cup is a motorrace that takes place in France, which Yema sponsors. Within the Alpine cup series, you have a mid blue dial with white subdials, a white dial with black subdials, and the one I have, which has a black dial and white subdials.

The watch comes in an extremely wearable 39 mm case with a lug-to-lug width of 47 mm and a very thin 10.2 mm case thickness. This low thickness is due to the watch using the Seiko Mechaquartz movement, which makes it also the cheapest watch in the Yema collection, coming in at just 390 Euros. Now, despite it being very cheap for a Yema, I must confess that I have a fundamental problem with the mechaquartz movement, I plain just don’t like it. That being said, that is the only bad thing I can say about this watch.

I am normally not the biggest fan of black dials. I notably hate the black that Rolex does, as the high gloss is awful. Now, I may be warming up to it, as I stated in my latest review of the DOXA Sub 250T Sharkhunter, matte black dials can be very cool. This Yema falls into that category, the metallic black mixed with the weirdly shaped subdials and domed glass just fit perfectly together, and the way light touches this watch is just a joy to experience. For a watch that only costs 390 euros, this is a 10/10 for me, and if they ever release one with an automatic or manual wound movement, it will 100% go high on my wishlist.

Tell me, what do you think? Is this potentially the best looking chronograph in the sub 500 euro price range? I hope you have enjoyed our review of the Yema Rallygraf. If you have not read our previous work with Yema, I suggest you do. If you are not yet fed up with my writing, I implore you to check out our other review of the week, where we talked about DOXA. Next week will see a history article on Delbana as well as a hands-on review of the Delbana Rotonda. As always, until next time.