Omega Seamaster "Fat Lugs," ca. 1958
This model features a bumper automatic movement (also known as "hammer-wind"), a precursor to the modern full-rotor automatics. In a full-rotor automatic, the motion of the wearer's wrist causes a weighted rotor to swing freely on a pivot, like a wheel; this motion winds the mainspring powering the watch. Earlier automatic movements, like this one, featured a weight that was limited to a semicircular arc - in this case, around 270 degrees. When the weight reaches the end of the arc, its motion is dampened by springs at either end of its track, imparting a noticable "boing" to the wearer's wrist.
Paul Delury provides an excellent narrative of the servicing and reassembly of a similar model at TimeZone.
An honest photo, but maybe brutally so, like those tabloid pictures of famous people early in the morning before coffee or makeup. This rather unforgiving shot shows every flaw at high magnification; in reality, it looks much lovelier than this. Still, at some point I'd like to clean up that dial and case a bit.
