Remington has nothing to do with the JM stamped Marlins....hence the desirability. Remington's initial offerings of the Marlin brand were fraught with problems, due to an inexperienced workforce which had NO experience in manufacturing lever action rifles.
All of the JM stamped Marlins were assembled by skilled craftsmen, who typically had many years experience and some amount of pride in their work.
The possible exception is last JMs produced when the workers knew they were out of a job and couldn't care less about their work.
The "Remington" issue didn't start showing up until about 2010.
