Oscillon

Oscillon is one of the most singular propositions in the entire history of independent watchmaking — a Swiss micro-brand that produces what may be the most thoroughly handmade mechanical watches available to purchase today, made entirely without CNC machines, using restored antique tools and 19th-century production methods practised by a handful of watchmakers in the world. The brand was founded in 2016 by Dominique Buser and Cyrano Devanthey, two classmates from the Solothurn watchmaking school who graduated together in 1994 and had spoken about making a watch entirely by hand since their apprenticeship years — then spent the following two decades accumulating the manual machines, the skills, and the industry experience that would eventually make it possible. Their careers in the interim were distinguished: Buser went to Vacheron Constantin after graduation, then worked part-time while completing a physics degree at the University of Zurich, and then contributed to the development of the Urwerk Opus 5 for Harry Winston. Devanthey took a different but equally significant path: in 2005 he was made responsible for Omega's Cellule Haute Gamme, where one of his main roles was managing the production of the Omega Central Tourbillon — the world's first production wristwatch with a central tourbillon. In 2009, fifteen years after leaving the Solothurn school, Devanthey joined Buser at Urwerk's R&D atelier in Buchs, where his first responsibility was the development of the UR-110 and his subsequent projects included the Experiment ZR012 for C3H5N3O9, the joint venture by Urwerk and MB&F.

Another close friend from the Solothurn school: Felix Baumgartner, who went on to found Urwerk. The shared friendship between Baumgartner, Buser, and Devanthey means that Urwerk and Oscillon operate in the same creative and physical space — and that Felix Baumgartner became one of Oscillon's earliest and most enthusiastic supporters, encouraging the project, sharing resources, and ultimately joining the Time Aeon Foundation whose collaboration with Oscillon would produce the Naissance d'une Montre 2.

The production process at Oscillon is a deliberate act of horological archaeology. The two founders spent twenty years hunting down, acquiring, and restoring the specific types of manual watchmaking machines used by Swiss watchmakers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries — the generation of tools that produced the finest handmade pocket watches and early wristwatches before mass production displaced them. These include pivot lathes (for shaping pivot shafts by hand), pinion cutting machines (cutting each tooth individually), pantograph machines (for crossing out wheel spokes and shaping springs), manual lathes (for turning plates and bridges to size), and a brocading machine that is simultaneously a rose engine and a pantograph — used for engraving the distinctive tapisserie dials.

CNC machines, automated machinery, and modern production techniques are, in the brand's own language, 'excommunicated' from the workshop. Each of the processes is not new, not cutting-edge, and not secret — but they are extraordinarily rare, practised by only a handful of watchmakers in the world. The skill to use these machines properly was in some cases learned from the elders of the profession, in some cases reconstructed from historical documentation, and in all cases the product of years of practice and accumulated knowledge that cannot be replicated quickly or at scale. The result is that when a collector holds an Oscillon, they are holding an object made the way watches were made in the 1890s — not as historical recreation but as living practice. Quill & Pad's Ian Skellern, one of the most respected writers in independent watchmaking, wrote in 2016 that he knew of 'only three watchmakers making watches by hand today': Michel Boulanger for Naissance d'une Montre, and Dominique Buser and Cyrano Devanthey of Oscillon.

The collection comprises two watches and one extraordinary collaboration. L'Instant de Vérité — 'the moment of truth' — was the debut watch, launched in 2016 after four years of development beginning in 2012. At 40mm in red gold, it features a proprietary manually wound movement incorporating a constant-force spring that requires a differential for its operation — a mechanically unusual and demanding combination in any watch, and doubly so in one made entirely by hand. A power reserve complication and subsidiary seconds complete the display. Limited to 10 pieces total, produced at 2–3 per year, and sold exclusively through Türler in Zurich, it was priced at CHF 162,800 at launch.

The Fundamentum (2023) is the second watch — a 38mm × 9.8mm stainless steel time-only piece with a tapisserie dial, polished indexes, and restrained hands that disguise the extraordinary effort of its making with perfect composure, wearing like a classical dress watch while concealing the fact that every component was made by hand. The Fundamentum calibre is manually wound, beats at 18,000 vph (2.5Hz), and provides a 45-hour power reserve with Breguet overcoil. Limited by production capacity to 5 watches per year at CHF 155,000. Quill & Pad described it as 'the ultimate sleeper watch.' The Naissance d'une Montre 2 (2023) was a unique fully handmade watch developed in collaboration with Greubel Forsey, Urwerk, and the Time Aeon Foundation — a project that brought together Robert Greubel, Stephen Forsey, Felix Baumgartner, and Buser and Devanthey of Oscillon in the most ambitious collective handmade watchmaking exercise ever attempted, auctioned at Phillips Geneva in May 2023. Young watchmakers David Friedli and Jonas Plüss also work alongside the founders, ensuring the traditions are passed to the next generation.