Marathon CSAR: Ultimate Military Tool Watch Review
Posted in articles&news on May 1st, 2012 No Comments »
The Marathon CSAR is a pretty awesome Automatic Chronograph designed with Military inspired lines and practical sense. The watch is very large, which can be challenging for some, but very wearable if you can handle the size. Marathon designs a lot of products for military and government use in the US and Canada and the Marathon CSAR is the first Automatic Chronograph issued by the US Government.
The Watch is a large 46.6mm in diameter and 17mm thick with a 3mm thick sapphire crystal. The watch is a chunky affair with a 300m water resistance. The dial features H3 tritium gas tubes that glow continuously rather than require re-charging with light as traditional SuperLuminova does.
As you can see, the Tritium tubes are used for the indices and the hour and minute hands also feature the tubes. The remainder of the hands and subdial indices use traditional SuperLuminova. The dial lacks much decoration and is a flat black with painted arabics. Even though it is quite busy due to teh Chronograph subdials, the watch is easy to read.
As you can see, the bezel is very chunky and actually protrudes out from the case, making the watch wear even larger than its 46.6mm diameter would suggest. Of all the watches I’ve owned, this has one of the largest wrist presence. Even with the 17mm thickness, the watch is very wearable, in my opinion. Both case and bracelet are fully brushed.
The movement is an ETA/Valjoux 7750, with all features present including both the day and date. Works great and keeps time within COSC specifications. Given that this is a military inspired timepiece, the movement is a great choice because it is so robust and easily serviceable.
There’s the backside of the bracelet. You can just catch a glimpse of the solid caseback behind it. There are a few different bracelet versions, but the one I have here is the Canadian Maple Leaf one, which is the most appropriate for me since I am in Canada. The bracelet isn’t anything special, but its quite comfortable and has a neat pattern to it with the middle link as it is angled on the top side.
I really like the CSAR and think that its one of favourite tool watches out there. They are quite pricey at almost $ 3000US with the bracelet, but a very cool watch that really stands out from many of the other tool watch brands out there.
