The History of Marathon Watches
Marathon General Purpose Mechanical watch / Credit: aBlogtoWatch
When people think horology, they usually don’t think Canada, and rightly so as we’ve never really had a watch industry comparable to even the US or Germany. However, that does not mean we haven’t had any notable watch brands come out of the Dominion. In fact, one brand in particular is known for its historic involvement as supplier to Canadian and American armed forces and comes with a great name to match that story; Marathon.
Marathon was originally founded as Weinstrum Watch in 1904 by members of the Wein family in New York City. The Weins were originally from Russia and upon arrival to the United States, some of them changed their original family name to Wenger and moved to Montréal where they founded the Wenger watch company of Canada; that had no relation to its Swiss counterpart and is another notable Canadian watch brand of the 20th century. The real Marathon was founded in 1939 by Morris Wein, also in Montréal, and earned a reputation supplying the Allies in World War II. Most recently, Marathon supplied their infamous General Purpose Mechanical watch ref. WW194003 to the US armed forces in the First Gulf War and in the 2010s has supplied the Israeli Defence Force’s paratroop unit, Dundevan, with dive watches. Marathon made their watches in Canada until the early 1990s when they contracted the venerable Gallet & Co. to manufacture them in Switzerland. Another one of their famous watch models is the Search And Rescue, a watch intended for use by military divers and made at the request of the Canadian Navy.
Marathon may not be that well known, even in Canada, but it definitely gets respect in the watch world and is beloved by military watch fans everywhere for their robust design and unique history of supplying militaries around the world with timepieces. Both the original Wein family, Marathon, and some of their other watch brands are still active, with family members taking lead roles in most of the companies. Who knows maybe one day another Canadian watch brand can rise up and join it on the world stage.