Available with a brown strap & champagne dial, or black on black.
It’s good, it’s interesting, and it will find its fans. But for most, the Timex Marlin Automatic will not surpass Orient’s Bambino 38mm small-seconds automatic as the best go-to affordable automatic dress watch on the market.
Vintage looks. Subtle sunburst to the dial.
40mm in diameter with a mid-century inspired dial, the Marlin Automatic is a moderately sized “big brother” to the positively doll-like 34mm hand-wind original. “Oh but watches are too big these days. A 34mm wristwatch is more in line to the size watches used to be.” Yeah well, people are bigger these days too. And proportionality matters. A 40mm watch is the sweet spot for most of us in that average height/weight range.
13mm thickness. On the thicker side for a dress watch,
but should slide under a shirt cuff for many.
It is a bit on the “tall” side though. At 13mm thick thanks to a domed acrylic crystal, it’s somewhere between deep-dish pizza and birthday cake. 13mm is getting up there for a dress watch (the Bambino 38 is 12mm tall) but the smooth, domed case helps it slide under shirt cuffs.
Domed crystal is “period correct” acrylic. So it’ll pick up scratches.
Some find that charming and easy to fix. Others find it a hassle.
That domed crystal is acrylic. Not mineral and certainly not sapphire. So expect it to pick up (fixable) scratches, just like many a wristwatch from the mid 20th century would. The font used at 3, 6, 9, and 12 is clearly inspired by that time period as well, and the subtle-sunburst champagne dial is also evocative of sunken living rooms, bar carts, and other stylish items of that era. The hour and minute hands are lumed, which frankly could have been done without. It’s a dress watch, not a diver or field watch, and the white-in-light lume sections don’t look as classy as a pair of all silver hands would.
Mid-century style font at 12, 3, 6, and 9. Indices are applied.
The leather they use for the strap is labeled as “Eco friendly genuine leather,” and its got a soft, nicely textured look and feel to it fresh out of the box. No stiff plastic feeling junk here. It also comes with quick release pins, which will help if you want to swap out the 20mm wide stock warm-brown leather strap for black. The exhibition caseback shows of the hacking and hand-windable 21-jewel movement from Miyota. So no battery changes will be needed, as it’s powered either by winding it carefully (and not overwinding) at the crown, or by your movement as you wear it.
Exhibition case back shows off the hacking and hand-windable movement.
It’s exceedingly… pleasant. With a much more wearable size than the original Marlin 34mm, and a presence that’s interesting but nowhere near as quirky as the Marlin Mod, the Marlin Automatic 40mm anchors what has quickly become one of the most important lines in the Timex catalog. Or to put it another way, it’s the head of the class for that particular school of horological “fish.”
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