Greetings all.
I've never gotten to post in the military section before, so this is new to me. I was looking through some more of my grandfathers old watches and found this. It an Adanac wristwatch dated Feb. 1986 made by Gallet and Co. I'm not familiar with this wathch or manufacturer at all, but it's really solid and I'm interested in anything that y'all can tell me about it. Very curious about how I would go about getting it cleaned up. I really want to take out and replace the battery, but I figured I should ask everyone here first.
Thanks for any info you have! Happy Holidays!!

Here's the back. I pulled out a black light to shine on the face and everything still glows like Christmas lights! Thanks again!

It is not entirely a Gallet made watch.

Adanac is Canada spelled backwards. These Adanac wristwatches were made for both the Canadian Army and the US Air Force in the mid to late 1980s. There was a joint contract with two Canadian companies to make them - Gallet made the cases and Marathon who has been making watches for the Canadian and US military since 1939 made the movements and dials. In the 1990s Marathon took over the entire contract and began making Marathon marked wristwatches. While Marathon is Canada based, their movements are designed, engineered and made in Switzerland. These Marathon marked wristwatches are the ones that have been issued to USAF pilots and navigators and others since then. Marathon is a big name in military wristwatches of the past several decades, but they do not aim at the civilian market so you will not see them around the non-military watch scene much, though a civilian can buy them directly from Marathon or any of their authorized dealers around the world if the civilian would like a wristwatch that is the actual identical one used by the militaries I mentioned. They are not cheap, but they are not silly priced like Rolexes and such. One feature they have that are unlike most every other watch available is they have tritium filled glass tubes mounted in their hands and dials. This means you do not have to "charge up" a luminescent paint that other brands have - even the ultra expensive brands. Most Marathons have this feature that means there is tritium gas (H3) and a micro thin layer of zinc sulfide in the tiny glass vials. Tritium gas is mildly radioactive (so little that the radioactivity from it cannot even penetrate the watch case or crystal) which excites the zinc sulfide so it glows brightly with its own internal energy for many years. The half-life of tritium is such that this begins to dim a bit after about 10 years and even more after about 20 years and beyond so your watch that is marked as having tritium would be all but dead in terms of its lume mechanism. It would need new hands and dial to get its former night time blazing glory back. It is not realistic to try to replace just the tiny glass vials.

By the way, Timex sells watches marked Marathon, but they are not the real Marathon watches.

Here is a link to the Marathon website: https://www.marathonwatch.com/

Hi Jim.
Thanks for all of the information! I had seen the name Marathon associated with these watches, but this one doesn't actually say Marathon on it anywhere, so I didn't think it applied here. I feel like I read somewhere that there were only two years that they produced these, 1986 and 1988 or 89, but I can't find that anywhere again, so I'm guessing that is some incorrect information. That information on the tritium is fascinating! I've never heard of that before. I noticed that everything still glows after exposure to lights and especially UV light, but I didn't know that they used to just glow automatically. And I'm not at all concerned about getting it's full time glow back. I really just want to get it back up and running again. I have a few other watches from my grandfather, and that's what I've done with them, so I'd really like to keep going in that direction. Thanks again for all of the great info!!

Hi Ed. I just took another look at your photo of your watch and now I see that it is not tritium equipped. Sorry for my too quick glance. Here is an image of the current Marathon watch being issued to Canadian and US Air Force flight personnel: If you look closely you can see the tiny tritium vials. Also you can see the dial is marked with the nuclear energy symbol and the code H3. H3 is the scientific name for tritium - it is hydrogen gas with an third hydrogen atom forced onto the natural two atom H2 form of the gas. Marathon will sell these to civilians for $420.

And here is one of the more advanced Marathon military models showing the tritium glowing in low light. They will sell this model with a steel bracelet to civilians for $1,800.

Hi Jim.
Thanks for checking back in. Sorry I'm so behind in responding. I really thought I'd checked last month, but obviously not!
The tritium is very cool and glows like crazy! Mine is certainly old enough that it doesn't glow by itself any more, but a quick shot of black light gets it fired up.
I've emailed the company to inquire about having it serviced. I haven't heard back from them, but hopefully they'll get back to me soon. I'd love to have it back by September so that I can wear it on what would have been my grandfathers 105th bday!
Thanks again for the comments and pictures. I'll keep updating once I hear anything.
Have a good February!

Greetings all!
Back in February, I was able to get in contact with the Marathon folks to ask them about cleaning up this watch. I sent it in, they worked their magic and a few months later I've got a working watch!
It sounds like they don't get a whole lot of these "older" watches to work on, but thankfully this one just needed cleaned up, a new battery and a new strap. Alas, no cool radioactive materials applied, but I'm OK with that! So now I'm wearing my newly cleaned watch proudly, just in time for Memorial Day!
Have a great upcoming holiday weekend everyone!

The Marathon folks did a really good job of cleaning up your old ADANAC! In looking closely, and I do not know for sure, but my guess is that the "glowing stuff" that was originally on it was never radioactive but rather the kind of luminous paint that almost all watches that have luminosity use. That is the kind has always required being first put under a strong light to get it to glow for a little while. I guess that is why Marathon eventually switched over to using the tiny glass vials of tritium gas to meet military needs of being able to read your watch in the field at all times of the night without getting out your flashlight to recharge it which can be dangerous if there are enemy soldiers nearby or if you are in an aircraft focused on flying it and need to preserve your night vision.

Hi Jim.
I would agree with you. When I use a magnifying glass, there's nothing about any of the spots that makes me think radioactive. It does look like they are just glow in the dark spots that you have to charge up with a light source. Thankfully, I'm not in a position where that will cause me any problems!