A brace of Spationautes incoming !

[Seiko7A38]

My collection includes more than 20 examples of the 43mm diameter Yema Spationaute III, model N80P76, varying in condition from NOS to 'beaters', including a few with the 'cadran drapeaux' limited edition mission flags dial. I guess you could say it's my favourite watch. In June 2022, I bought Jean-Loup Chrétien's Yema Spationaute III, which he wore for the 1988 Mir / Aragatz mission, in a French online auction, which became the crown jewel of my collection. So I couldn't realistically foresee myself ever buying any more.

I'm principally an obsessive collector of Seiko 7A38's and derivatives (which includes the Spationaute III), rather than 'space watches', so I've never really considered acquiring the preceding ana-digi Yema Spationaute I or II. I've added occasional examples to my eBay watching list, purely out of curiosity, but that's it. Until yesterday.

[Seiko7A38]

If you've read all the way though the Jean-Loup Chrétien's Yema Spationaute III thread, you may recall reading this post.
Below follows a partial quote of the second half of it.

Besides Michel Tognini's # 04, I'd known of the existence of one other (non space flown) Yema Spationaute III factory prototype. Between 2012 and 2014, I exchanged a number of emails with Gérald Roden, who was Export Manager for Compagnie Générale Horlogère from 1987 to 1992. In July 2013 he kindly emailed me some photos, including this slightly out of focus shot of his two Yema Spationaute III's. Both watches have the limited edition production version of the mission flags dial, rather than the 'prototype'. But the bezel engraving of the right hand example clearly belongs to what once was a prototype version. Naturally curious, I asked Gérald for its serial number. He replied 02.

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I remember coveting them at the time Gérald had sent me the photos (July 2013), but had (years) later acquired a few examples of the 'cadran drapeaux' variant and ultimately JLC's watch, so the jealousy had subsided. I never hinted that I'd be interested in buying them during our various email conversations. I still have them on file, so now would probably be a good time to copy and paste a couple of them here, from July 2013 and July 2014.

Dear Paul,

I had taken these some months back.
They are pictures of some of my Yema watches.
You will see 2 interesting Spationaute III, with a different engraving on the bezel, and the complete collection of 1, 2 and 3.
I have included some of the original designs I had made for the export market on the Chrono movement.
Have added some crazy North and South Pole watches including a one of a kind made for N Hulot.
Have pictures some of the campaign I did in Singapore and some of the French ads.
Hope you like it.

Best

Dear Paul,

The copy of the media advertising I sent to you was made for export market and mainly published in Asia.

I do remember that the product department worked on an all Titanium case. Have they been able to produce it... ?
can't remember, it is too far away.

The Spationaute III with the straight lettering is I guess one of the limited editions made for the crew and the test.
The number on the back of it is 02. The other one with the commercial lettering carries the ref N8 OP 76.

The person in charge of OEM business for France at that time was Jean-Paul Zebouni. He might be the one to explain about Fred.

Best

From the photos he'd attached to the July 2013 email it was obvious that the main focus of Gérald's Yema collection was on the 'crazy' watches that Richard Mille developed for French explorers, rather than their space watches. They were not my cup of tea and I must admit that I didn't download the photos of them. I naturally saved the two photos of his Spationautes, the design drawings and the advertising. Here's the other photo that he sent me of his Spationautes.

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[Seiko7A38]

On Sunday afternoon, in a moment of boredom, I did my usual thing and googled images on Yema Spationaute III, to see if there was anything new. Scrolling down, I noticed a few thumbnails tagged 'YEMA' and 'Artcurial'. It didn't take long to find the source - an online auction that was already 6 days into it's 8 day duration, due to end on Tuesday 28th October !

https://www.artcurial.com/en/sales/IT6357

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Searching on Yema, I was quickly able to establish that Gérald Roden had put his Yema collection up for sale by auction.

These are the four lots which included them:

Lot # 13 was first to go under the hammer, singly, with an opening bid price / reserve of €2000 and an auctioneer's estimate of €2000 - €3000. The weird and wonderful Yema Odyssée prototype, built for explorer Nicolas Hulot, a 55mm diameter multicoloured monstrosity with 3 plastic crowns and numerous pushers ! It was probably the pride of Gérald's collection, but has to be a candidate for the ugliest watch in the World. Evidentally, only two of these watches were ever produced. More in formation on this watch can be found here.

Lot # 29, which I was particularly interested in, comprised a Spationaute I on a Velcro strap; two Spationaute II’s, one on the usual bracelet, the other on a leather strap and two Spationaute III’s – one a limited edition with mission flags dial and the ‘prototype’ No.2. It had an opening bid / reserve of €1500 and an auctioneer's estimate of €1500 - €2000.

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Lot # 64 comprised: Two Jean-Louis Etienne North Poles, a Jean-Louis Etienne Bipôle Duopoly, an America’s Cup France and a ‘Submariner’ quartz ‘diver’. It had an opening bid / reserve of €500 and an auctioneer's estimate of €500 - €600.

Lot # 90 again comprised: Two J-L Etienne North Poles, a J-L Etienne Bipôle Duopoly (with box, extra straps and tools), another slightly different America’s Cup France and the only other Yema N8 (apart from the two Spationaute III’s) – a Franken N81W63 (of more anon). Again, an opening bid / reserve of €500 and an auctioneer's estimate of €500 - €600.

All four lots were annotated (in French, translated): Lot sold as is, with signs of wear and tear, untested movements requiring a service and battery replacement, no warranty. Provenance: Yema watch collector

[Seiko7A38]

I'd previously bid using many other online auction platforms, including liveauctioneers.com, the-saleroom.com, and Drouot, another major French auction house, but had never used Arcturial before. So I registered on their site. It was all in French, naturally, so I had to guess at / 'fudge' one or two sections. Then I registered for this particular auction. I was automatically given a bidding limit of €7500, which was plenty for this auction.

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Once I'd done that, I placed an opening bid of €1500 on that lot: https://www.artcurial.com/en/sales/IT6357/lots/29-a

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I googled Artcurial online auctions, ad nauseam, but didn't find any explanation of how it was supposed to work. From what I could see there were 123 lots in this auction, ending at one minute intervals from 12:00pm CET (11:00 GMT). I quickly worked out that Lot 29 would be finishing one minute after 11:28 on Tuesday morning. I was a little worried about being outbid or sniped in the interim, but resolved not to increase my opening bid from €1500. Having read the auctioneer's T&C's, I knew the lot price was subject to 27% buyer's premium + VAT, bringing the total close to €2000, which made it €400 per watch. Especially when you consider that I really only wanted the two Spationaute III's.

[Seiko7A38]

Before I go any further, I'm going to upload the photos from Lot 29. Artcurial's photos are high quality, well lit and sharply focused. Most are 4000x3000 pixels and 1MB in file size, so bear with me while I re-size and upload them.

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(Of the two Spationaute III's, only 'Prototype No. 2' was shown in the primary image.)

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Apart from the condensed sanserif bezel engraving, this watch also has the slightly larger diameter case-back engraving and the taller Breitling Chronomat 'pumpkin' style crown, the same as my ex-Jean-Loup Chrétien space flown example.

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The 'cadran drapeaux' looks a nice clean example, better than most I already own, with a manufacturing serial number of 1-266, which is certainly in the right range, but I can't see a limited edition number stamping in the last photo.

[Seiko7A38]

Here are the photos of the other Yema Spationautes from Lot 29.

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This looks like a nice clean, little worn example of the Yema Spationaute II, model E5 OM8 6, as worn by Patrick Baudry, the second French astronaut, who flew as a payload specialist on space shuttle Discovery, flight STS-51G in June 1985. From memory, he wore the watch on a black kevlar / velcro strap, rather than the bracelet. Nice to see the LCD window hasn't yellowed as so many examples that I've seen in photos, but obviously the battery is flat.

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The other Spationaute II is fitted with a ribbed tan leather strap, similar to those found on the Yema N81X26, but never seen before on one of these. Maybe it was something Gérald fitted. Note that it also has a black / silver anodized bezel inlay, compared to the more common blue / silver.

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The Yema Spationaute (1) model reference E5 043 6 was the first French watch in space, worn by Jean-Loup Chrétien on his first spaceflight to Salyut 7 aboard Soyuz T-6 in June 1982. Again this looks a clean, little worn example, with a clear LCD screen. It's fitted with a black Kevlar / velcro strap as worn by JLC. Amusingly it also has a rusty buckle / adjuster.

Note that in all these photos, although Artcurial have set the watches' hour and minute hands to 10 past 10, in four out of five cases, their second and chronograph sub-dial hands are in exactly the same positions as shown in Gérald's two photographs, which were taken on 9th December 2012, indicating how long they had been left with flat batteries.

[Seiko7A38]

To get a feel for Artcurial's brand of online auction, I duly logged on at 11:00 on Tuesday morning, half expecting to see a button inviting me to join the live auction. There wasn't one. So I stayed on the main lots screen, constantly refreshing it and gradually scrolling down as the lots finished. I soon noticed that they didn't all finish on time. There appeared to be an inbuilt automatic extension. If someone placed a bid in the final minute, the finishing time was extended by 5 minutes. So my earlier worrying about being sniped in the final minute proved needless.

At 11:28 precisely, I switched to the Lot 29 screen and kept refreshing it. Thankfully, no other bids were forthcoming.

https://www.artcurial.com/en/sales/IT6357/lots/29-a

These are two screen prints I took as it ended (time in the first one shows 0d:0h:0m:0s remaining).

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So I won the auction for my opening bid price of €1500 Euros.

The outcome of the other ex-Gérald Roden Yema collection lots were as follows:

Lot 13, the Odyssée prototype, received no bids and went unsold. (It has since been deleted from the auction record.)
Lot 64 went for €850 Euros after 8 bids.
Lot 90 went for €750 Euros after 8 bids.

Later that afternoon, I searched on Artcurial for Yema and found these results. Prices are with their commission added.

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[Seiko7A38]

I must admit I spent some time looking whistfully at Lot # 90, or at least the photos of the Franken Yema N81W63 which it included. I found it quite attractive, even if it was a 'wrong un'.

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It had been fitted with the white Roman numeral dial from a N81W53, but still retained the blued pomme hands of the original watch. Zooming in on the case-back its serial number was 3288. So it certainly wasn't an early prototype. The N81W63 was one of the first models produced in volume and I've seen a few with Zero (0=1988) prefix serial numbers. Perhaps this was something Gérald had concocted for his own enjoyment.

Either way, with so many competing bids, it made no sense for me to bid on it. Apart from the fact that I already have far too many N81W63's, with the correct blue/silver and gold dials, buying this lot, for one watch, would have created unjustifiable additional expenditure, plus the hassle of having to sell on the four 'unwanted' watches.

Something else I spotted in Lot # 90 were a pair of yellow Kevlar / Velcro straps. Presumably these came supplied as accessories with the J-L Etienne North Pole or Bipôle Duopoly.

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I'd long fancied fitting one to a Yema Spationaute III, per this photo I saved from Forumamontres, many years ago.

YemaSpationauteIII-onYellowKevlar.jpg (66.91 KiB) Viewed 2297 times

[Seiko7A38]

While I was typing these posts, Artcurial's invoice arrived in my inbox attached to a lengthy email in French ! First thing I noticed was that their total with sales commission and taxes paid (but not including shipping) was €1986 Euros, as opposed to the €1968 shown on that screen print of recent results I'd posted. Presumably the invoice is correct and the posted result a typo. I did a quick check on their arithmetic. Calculating Artcurial's 27% buyers premium on €1500 Euros gives €405 Euros and adding 20% TVA/VAT on that, another €81 Euros, making a total of €1986 Euros. So no foul.

I had read their Terms and Conditions thoroughly and had been planning to pay them by credit card. They stated:

Successful bidders can settle their invoice by credit card by way of secure online payment only: VISA, MASTERCARD or AMEX (for American Express payments, an additional commission of 1.85% for collection costs will be charged).

I translated their lengthy email and it included this contradictory paragraph:

Payment of your invoice can be made in the following ways:

- by bank transfer to our auction house account indicated on your invoice;

- by credit card in person at the Hôtel Marcel Dassault, Monday to Friday, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and from 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.;

- By bank check made payable to ARTCURIAL (Note: purchases will only be delivered or shipped after your check has cleared, i.e., 8 business days);

- In cash up to €1,000 if you are a French resident or a professional, and up to €15,000 if you are a foreign resident, in accordance with Article L112-6 of the French Monetary and Financial Code.

So it looks like I'll be using bank transfer. Wise usually gives a far better exchange rate than credit cards anyway.

[Seiko7A38]

In case readers are wondering why there have been no updates, here's the current status quo ....

I did indeed pay Artcurial's invoice by bank transfer, using Wise, early on the morning of Thursday 30th October. The transaction took a matter of seconds and by 10:30 am, I had received a polite acknowledging email from their sales accounts department, which began:

Dear Sir,

We have well received your payment, and our auction house would like to thank you.

Herewith in the attached document, please find your paid invoice.

If you wish to ship your purchase, our Customs & Shipping department will be happy to send you a quotation. Please contact our Shipping Department directly by email, indicating the delivery address and your invoice number.

By 10:40 am I had emailed their shipping department, asking for a quotation. I expected a reply the same day. Perhaps that was unrealistic of me. On Friday (31st) I still heard nothing back, so I re-sent the email - and again on Monday 3rd.

Note '.... our Customs & Shipping department will be happy to send you a quotation'. Apparently not.
So I escalated the matter by emailing the administrator responsible for the sale, Charlotte Christien. She replied:

Dear Sir,

Please accept our apologies for the delay in responding to your shipping request.
Our shipping department receives a large number of requests and tries to respond to them as quickly as possible.

I will contact Ms. Tekirdaglioglu to arrange your shipment and get back to you as soon as possible.

I am still waiting, impatiently. It is now ONE WEEK since I first sent an email requesting a shipping quotation.

[Seiko7A38]

I probably should have read Artcurial's Trust Pilot reviews before bidding. The first two are pretty damning.

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Note the partial sentence: requests for quotes take 10 days to process;

[Seiko7A38]

Time for another belated update. Belated being the operative word.

By comparison to the 10 days cited, my Artcurial shipping quotation 'only' took 8 days ! It arrived in my email inbox early on the morning of Friday 7th November. Although not entirely a surprise, the amount was a bit of a shock. It was for more than double what I'd reckoned on - a whopping €123.62 Euros ! There was no breakdown of costs as such; it stated that it covered packing and shipping to UK by Fedex and included €60 Euros for insurance. I swallowed hard and paid within minutes of receiving it, again using Wise / bank transfer. By 9:30 am (UK time), my payment was in Artcurial's bank account. I emailed their Sales Account team and Shipping department advising of the payment and also forwarded them a copy of the Wise transaction in the vain hope that might initiate shipment. Fat chance.

They didn't even acknowledge receipt of my payment until late morning on the following Monday (10th), so my shipping quotation effectively ended up taking the cited 10 days to process. This is the wording of the reply I received:

Dear Madam, Dear Sir,

We have well received your payment, and our auction house would like to thank you.
Herewith in the attached document, please find your paid invoice.
My colleague from the Shipping department will shortly send you your item.

Best regards,

Audrey Couturier

Note the word 'shortly', which almost sounds encouraging.

I'd noticed an unusual name, which I hadn't seen before, included in the circulation of that email: Marine VIET. So, out of curiosity, I googled them. Turns out she is Directrice Transport & Douanes chez Artcurial, which literally translates as Artcurial's Transport and Customs Director.

I was hoping I'd hear something from their shipping department in the next couple of days. But I didn't. By Thursday 13th November I was frustrated and running out of patience. So in the afternoon, I sent a strongly worded 'chaser' email to their Shipping department, including Marine Viet on the circulation. I received no reply, other than this automated 'out of office' reply from Marine Viet:

Artcurial-MarineViet-OutOfOfficeReply.png (34.42 KiB) Viewed 1545 times

According to that, she only works Tuesdays and Thursdays. That email is dated Thursday 13th November @ 14:50 CET.
More interesting is that her LinkedIn profile reveals she ceased working for Artcurial directly in September 2025 !!

Friday 14th came and went with no replies. So that's ANOTHER WEEK gone.

Having now suffered first hand experience myself, I can understand how Artcurial earned such poor Trust Pilot reviews. Depending on how I feel by the end of this sorry saga, I may add another scathing one-star review to their current tally.

[Seiko7A38]

Some better news is that late on Monday 17th afternoon, I received an email, not from Artcurial's Shipping department, but from Fedex, advising that they had just collected my shipment from Artcurial. It is being sent Fedex International Economy and is due for delivery this Wednesday morning (19th), more than three weeks after the auction ended !

Update: Fedex delivered the package around 11:00 this morning. I must say the packing looked rather amateurish and hotchpotch, with lots of Artcurial logo'd tape - and bubblewrap on the outside. Inside, the watches were individually wrapped in tissue paper. All had flat batteries as expected, but otherwise their cosmetic condition looks pretty good.

I first tackled the two Spationaute III's. I can't remember having encountered such tightly tightened down case-backs in a long while. I had to resort to my old trick of using aerosol freezer spray on them. That of the 'Prototype 02' needed a lot of welly and yielded with a resounding crack. Although I suspect their old run-down batteries had been depleted for a long while (at least since December 2012, when Gérald Roden photographed them) thankfully neither had leaked.

Once I'd replaced their batteries with Seizaiken #394's, to my relief, both watches appeared to be working properly. However when I turned 'Prototype 02' over, I noticed the 1/10s sub-dial hand had fallen off, probably caused by that shock to the case-back. Also the crystal in the 'cadran drapeaux' is rather cloudy, and would benefit from a quick wipe. In fact, if you look back at the two photos that Gérald Roden emailed me in July 2013, it looked foggy back then. So both Spationaute III's will need their movements popping out before I take any photographs.

[Seiko7A38]

It was with some trepidation that I tackled the ana-digi Spationaute 1 and II's. I'd been reading up about them (mostly on ForumaMontres) and the problems caused by battery leakage and of sourcing (very scarce) replacement movements. Their case-back notches were a slightly different p.c.d. to the Seiko 'norm' so I had to resort to using my good old Jaxa (copy) case-back tool. Fortunately their case-backs weren't screwed on as tightly as the two Spationaute III's.

The first one I tackled was the Spationaute II fitted with a tan leather strap. What I found when I unscrewed the case-back didn't bode well. I could see tiny beads of 'sweat' on the battery case. I managed to take a couple of quick photos before my camera's battery went flat. I'll insert a couple more into this post, once it's charged up again.

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Once I'd removed the battery clamp screws, levered out the old battery (a Seizaiken SR41W) it was sadly evident it had leaked. The gold-plated battery negative contact had dark coloured deposits on it and the white plastic of the battery well was stained. Also some of the gold plated tracks on the PCB look rather tarnished, but it possibly might clean up.

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The other Spationaute II, on a bracelet fared better. That one was fitted with a UCAR #384 battery which hadn't leaked.

The Spationaute I's case-back was surprisingly loose - barely finger tight. It was fitted with another Seizaiken SR41W which hadn't leaked. From what I'd read, I was expecting this watch to be fitted with a Morioka Tokei Y652A movement, but it was fitted with the later Y652B movement, the same as the two Spationaute II's.

Having found Seizaiken SR41W's in two of them, I assume the correct replacement battery is a #392. I didn't have any of those in stock. But as I'd found a #384 in one of them, which is almost exactly the same physical size, presumably that will also suffice. I'd bought a box of 10 Seizaiken #384 (SR41SW) last year, to use in my Carrera 7Axx 'clones'.

Working in reverse order, I fitted Seizaiken #384's to all three of them. The Spationaute 1 and II on a bracelet responded immediately - ticking away happily with working LCD displays. The Spationaute II on the leather strap was another story. I carefully scraped the deposits off the negative battery terminal, before pressing a battery in. Sadly to no avail. It was as dead as the proverbial dodo. I suppose two out of three (ana-digi's) ain't bad, but I'm slightly disappointed.

[Seiko7A38]

This morning I've spent half an hour correctly setting up the digital functions on my newly acquired Spationaute 1 and II. There are 4 modes: Digital time (12 or 24 Hour); Day / Date and Month; Alarm Setting and 1/100s Chronograph (defaults to 00:00:00). These are accessed by pressing button C (bottom left) and altered / set using a combination of buttons A and B (top and bottom right). Frankly it was a damned fiddly, eye-straining job and not something I want to repeat. The only problem I encountered was switching off the alarm setting on the Spationaute II, but managed to in the end, more by luck than judgement. For future reference I followed the Breitling B232 instructions from this old thread on SCWF.

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[Seiko7A38]

One last thought on the dead Spationaute II, fitted with a leather strap, before I consign it to the 'awaiting repair' pile.
Remember my earlier musing ?

The other Spationaute II is fitted with a ribbed tan leather strap, similar to those found on the Yema N81X26, but never seen before on one of these. Maybe it was something Gérald fitted.

Something which wasn't visible in any of the previous photos was the buckle. Not the usual Yema 'wire loop' type that I might have expected, but this rather unusual design, embossed with the initials J.L.E., which, judging by the ill-fitting tang, I'd suspect isn't original to this strap.

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Those initials stand for Jean-Louis Etienne, the French polar explorer. This buckle is usually found on a Yema North Pole:

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.... so almost certainly something Gérald had fitted.

[Seiko7A38]

A bit of good news. I can't be bothered to go back and edit the previous posts, but luckily I've managed to get that previously 'dead' Spationaute II (the one fitted with a leather strap) running again. I decided to remove the thin metal plate and insulator that covers it, to get a better look at the PCB. Only three more screws. Although the tracks were tarnished in a few places, I couldn't spot any obvious breaks or corrosion. So I gave it a couple of squirts of MicroCare ProClean (a plastic safe electrical contact cleaner). Allowed that to evaporate and screwed it back together. Popped in a Seizaiken #384 and this time it worked !! Which means I've got to go through that digital display setup thing again. Perhaps I might be able to do it without referring to the manual this time.

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Note to self: the Seiko part number for the PCB (also used in H461's) is 4001.317 (listed as obsolete by Cousins UK).
There was one sold on eBay UK in August this year: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/236263831328

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[Seiko7A38]

Also the crystal in the 'cadran drapeaux' is rather cloudy, and would benefit from a quick wipe. In fact, if you look back at the two photos that Gérald Roden emailed me in July 2013, it looked foggy back then. So both Spationaute III's will need their movements popping out before I take any photographs.

This morning I popped the dial / movement out of the 'cadran drapeaux' Spationaute III to facilitate de-fogging the crystal. The underside was absolutely filthy. Looks better now. Here's a couple of Q&D flash-lit photos I took earlier:

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Nice clean Shimauchi V906 movement, fitted with new Seizaiken #394 battery.

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As I'd already gleaned from Artcurial's photo, the serial number is 1 266, but it has no limited edition number stamping.

[Seiko7A38]

Better late than never, here's a few Q&D flash-lit photos of Spationaute III 'Prototype No. 02'. They don't really show it in its best light, but I may have a long wait for some decent natural light, now Winter is setting in. This morning I re-fitted its errant 1/10s second hand. It's been a long time since I've done any hand setting. I'd forgotten how fiddly it was, but I managed to get it hitting the sub-dial marks spot on at the third attempt.

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Nice clean Shimauchi V906 Movement fitted with new Seizaiken #394 battery.

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The case-back is a little scuffed but all the details are clear enough, especially the all-important 02 stamping. Note the slightly larger diameter engraving, which almost touches the removal tool holes and the taller Breitling style crown. I'd previously forgotten to mention the strap. From the top it looks just like the 22mm navy blue strap you'd expect to find on an early production Spationaute III, but it has a cream lining, without the usual YEMA PARIS WATERPROOF embossing.