Calibre 550 — the base of the automatic family

In brief

Every automatic in Omega's 5xx family traces back to this one. Seventeen jewels, no date, no chronometer certificate — the standard version, and the one the rest of the series was derived from.

Short history

Omega launched the 550 in 1958, a direct development of its first bumper automatics of the 1940s and of the calibre 501, which in 1956 had introduced a bidirectional full rotor. The whole 5xx family was built on it: from the 550 came versions with more jewels, with chronometer certification and, later, with a date.

Watches that used it

• Constellation (standard version)
• Seamaster automatic