Marathons are really US govt. issue watches. The original SAR is also Canadian issue (that's who it was developed for originally).
Quality, on what I've had (SARs) is great. They're made to contract, not made for retail, so there CAN be relatively minor QC issues. Most sellers will gladly and quickly correct any issues.
The watches available for sale are contract overruns (I have my suspicions that the sellers have a deal with Marathon to guarantee a minimum number of "overruns", but there's nothing wrong with that, and it's only a suspicion).
For further verification private citizens can peruse the GSA catalog (but you can't purchase via that route) and see that the Marathon watches are there.
wus
