Ressence Finally Gives Us A New Oil-Filled Watch, Now With Their Own Movement

OK, a couple of things I want to clear up at the start. If you know this newsletter, you know that it opens up with a watch from a mainstream brand, something that could be called a "big release". Something that would appeal to the broadest public. Ressence is not a mainstream brand nor do they release watches interesting to the broader public. However, Ressence is one of my top 5 favorite brands of all time and I'm just waiting for the moment that I can feature them as the main watch in a newsletter. But I've been having problems with Ressence. When I first saw the TYPE 3, their incredibly cool oil-filled spaceship of a watch, my knees got weak, my brow got wet and I fell deeply in love. Unfortunately, this love has been fading a bit. I still love their watches very much, but they're getting less and less interesting to me. My disinterest peaked this year when the brand made a big deal of using their own movement to run their cool magnetically-connected movements. It's not like I have something against in-house movements. I just liked how scrappy Ressence was using the old ETA base to prove that you can make very cool things with ordinary movements. But, Ressence has also been going way up in price. So high that not using an in-house movement is becoming inexcusable. That also makes the move to an in-house movement leave a bitter taste in my mouth, as if they were only going for it to get more money from us, despite the movement being very cool and beautiful. All that together, and my enthusiasm was waining. Until now, that is. Ressence just introduced the TYPE 10 DN, which uses their in-house movement, and it finally has me swooning for a Ressence. Not because it's their first oil filled model with the new movement. But because... look at it. It's wild looking! It's completely different from what they make, which has me looking at it intensely.

The case is 41.5mm wide and made from grade 5 titanium with a dark blue DLC coating. The shape is new for Ressence. Earlier models were soft and rounded, while this one has sharper edges and a strap that runs straight out of the case. It’s the most aggressive design the brand has done, and it looks great. If the next Batman does not wear this watch, it's a missed opportunity. There’s domed sapphire crystals on both sides, anti-reflective coated on the inside. The bezel is built from 24 titanium segments, brushed on the larger surfaces, with sandblasted inserts filled with lume. Water resistance is 50 meters.

Case, dial and strap are all the same dark blue. The large convex titanium disc shows the minutes and drives the rest of the display. Three tilted sub-discs indicate the hours, a second time zone and a 120-second running indicator that also acts as a shock absorber. The hour disc has a small opening that changes colour with oil temperature and turns green in the normal range, roughly 15 to 35°C. Indications are engraved and filled with Super-LumiNova. The layout comes from the TYPE 7, so the dial itself isn’t new, but when it's filled with oil no air gap, the discs look printed on the underside of the sapphire. And that's such a cool look.

The RW-04 is a development of the TYPE 11’s RW-01, designed by Ressence and produced with Concepto. It’s automatic, can also be hand-wound, and is wound and set through the caseback. It beats at 4Hz and uses two barrels for 60 hours of power reserve. The movement sits in a sealed air chamber and drives the oil side magnetically, with the two magnet sets 0.2mm apart and a 0.1mm titanium membrane between them. An expansion membrane absorbs changes in oil volume so bubbles don’t form as it cools. The strap is dark blue rubber with a DLC titanium pin buckle.

The Ressence TYPE 10 DN is limited to 100 pieces, and priced at a significant CHF 45,000 before tax, available from November 2026. See more on the Ressence website.