Watch the balance wheel work.

An open heart is a cut-out in the dial that exposes the balance wheel and its hairspring, the part of a mechanical movement that swings back and forth to regulate the time. On the Bambino Open Heart it sits on the left of a white dial, and the wheel is visibly moving whenever the watch is running.

The rest of the dial is stripped back to make room for it: applied gold-tone baton markers, dauphine hands, no numerals and no date. Everything on the dial that is not the aperture is there to frame the aperture.

Turn the watch over and the exhibition caseback shows the same movement from behind, rotor and all. It is Orient’s in-house caliber F6T22, which some retailers print as FT622; the research treats these as the same movement. It winds automatically, winds by hand and hacks, with a 40-hour reserve on 22 jewels at 21,600 vibrations per hour.

For a first mechanical watch, seeing the movement from both sides is a genuine education. It is also, at this price, a rare thing: the visual flourish is a real mechanism rather than a printed effect.

The case is 40.5mm across and 12mm thick in polished stainless steel, on a dark brown leather strap with a pin buckle. The domed mineral crystal adds to the height and gives the watch its vintage profile. Orient rates it to 30m, which is rain and handwashing, not swimming.

It is the same broad footprint as the other Bambinos on this site, and the same trade: mineral rather than sapphire, a dress rating rather than a sports one, in return for an in-house automatic at this price. Figures here are Orient’s, not measured by us.