Description
Timex has added a second shape to the Marlin automatic family. The Marlin Chatham Automatic, announced in the first week of October 2026, is a 36 mm cushion-cased dress watch with a Miyota 8215 automatic, a display caseback and a price of USD 289 for the steel version and USD 299 for the gold-tone (EUR 279 / EUR 289).
There are two references: TW2Y84300, steel with a silvery-white dial, and TW2Y84500, PVD gold-tone with a black dial. Both are permanent collection, not limited, and both do something Timex has been quietly good at for a decade — selling a mechanical watch with real mid-century shape for the price of a nice dinner.
Design
The case is a soft-square cushion in polished stainless steel, 36 mm wide, 12 mm thick and 44.5 mm lug to lug, with a see-through caseback showing the movement. The gold-tone version adds a PVD coating over the same case.
Both dials are smooth and unfussy, with applied Breguet-style numerals, an open printed minute track and polished baton hands. There is no lume — a deliberate dress-watch decision rather than a cost one, though it is also a cost one. The crystal is hardened mineral rather than sapphire, which is the clearest place the price shows. Straps are sustainable leather sourced through the Leather Working Group, in black or brown, on quick-release spring bars with a steel pin buckle. Water resistance is 50 m.
Specifications
- References: TW2Y84300 (steel, silvery-white dial); TW2Y84500 (PVD gold-tone, black dial)
- Case material: polished stainless steel, with optional PVD gold coating
- Case shape: cushion / soft square
- Case width: 36 mm
- Case thickness: 12 mm
- Lug-to-lug: 44.5 mm
- Crystal: hardened mineral
- Caseback: see-through display
- Water resistance: 50 m
- Dial: silvery-white or black, smooth finish, applied Breguet-style numerals, polished non-lumed hands
- Movement: Miyota 8215, automatic, 21 jewels
- Functions: hours, minutes, hacking seconds with stop-seconds
- Frequency: 21,600 vph (3 Hz)
- Power reserve: 42 hours
- Strap: sustainable leather (Leather Working Group) in black or brown, quick-release spring bars, steel pin buckle
- Limited edition: no, permanent collection
- Price: USD 289 / EUR 279 (steel); USD 299 / EUR 289 (gold-tone)
- Availability: now, via timex.com and retailers
What's Exciting
The interesting thing is not the movement — the Miyota 8215 is a 3 Hz workhorse with a famously wobbly non-hacking reputation in older versions, here specified with hacking and stop-seconds — but the shape and the restraint. A 36 mm cushion case at 44.5 mm lug to lug is a genuinely period-correct proportion, and Timex has resisted the obvious move of inflating it to 38 or 40 mm to chase a wider market. The applied Breguet numerals are the detail that does the most work: applied markers at USD 289 are not a given, and they are what separate this from a printed dial that looks like a quartz watch with a rotor added.
The honest criticism is the crystal. Hardened mineral on a dress watch that will spend its life against desks and cuffs will haze in a way sapphire would not, and at USD 289 a domed acrylic would arguably have been the better and more period-correct choice. But a display caseback, an automatic movement, applied numerals and a cushion case for under three hundred dollars is a specification sheet that did not exist at this price five years ago. For a first mechanical watch, or for someone who wants mid-century shape without the vintage-market lottery, it is very hard to argue with.
History
Timex descends from the Waterbury Clock Company, founded in Connecticut in 1854, and became a household name through the mid-twentieth century on the strength of cheap, durable, serviceable watches — the "takes a licking and keeps on ticking" era. The Marlin was one of its mechanical dress lines in the 1960s, discontinued as quartz took over the company's output.
Timex revived the Marlin in 2017 as a hand-wound 34 mm reissue, which sold out repeatedly and quietly proved that there was a real market for sub-USD 300 mechanical watches with period design. The line has since grown to include automatics, a California dial, a jump hour and a Snoopy edition, and has become the most credible mechanical thing the brand does. The Chatham brings the family its first cushion case, a shape Timex used widely in the 1930s and 1960s and has been slow to return to.
