While most people tend to judge a wrist watch purely on how it looks on their wrist, what many are missing is the little machine that sits just beneath that numbered face. Somewhat of an oversite in my opinion, most do not think about what it takes to turn that electrical current (provided by the battery) into a registered movement of the dial. That current is converted to a vibration or frequency that is then, through a series of little arms and gears, stepped down to produce a highly accurate "movement" of the dial.
Now what has recently peaked my interest into these little machines, is this 1970's Omega Seamaster that has been passing from person to person in my family.
This period of Omega movements is actually pre quartz, yet still electronic. In the early 1960's, Bulova developed a prototype electronic movement that used a tuning fork to produce a highly accurate frequency that was then fed into a gear to produce a usable rotation. Omega licensed this technology to produce several of its own movements, including the #1250 that sits in the back of this Seamaster. The tuning fork style movements were all set to a specific frequency(the #1250 is set to 300hz), and in turn would "hum" as it ran. This method of time keeping turned out to be so accurate at the time, it was used by NASA in the Apollo missions.
Unfortunately, like all machines, without service these watches tend to wear out. Which is were I find myself right now. A fine example of mid century engineering that no longer hums.
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