A recent run through the gun safe left me painfully aware that I no longer possesed a .30-30. I sought to remedy the problem at the recent gun show and was appalled to find Win 94's running from 600-800, with an occasional rough one for around 400. I just hadn't paid attention to 30-30's for a while and memory left me with 94's being unbelievably common and not much more than a quality 22. Ouch; have prices gone up.
Reading too much as a kid I had concluded microgroove = inaccuracy and really didn't discover Marlin's until the last 10 years or so when the cowboy crowd affected the return of ballard rifling. So I comparitively don't know much about their history. The marlin's were running 50-100% cheaper for similar condition. It seems to me things used to be the other way around.
Anyway to the point ...
I settled on a 1969 336 for what -naturally- I want to believe was the find of the show for only 300. It's 98%. I doubt it (if fired at all) has ever seen the woods. I looked it up in my books to see if I had fallen on my sword and find it doesn't quite fit the descriptions for a standard 336. I'm wondering if they didn't always assign a letter after the model number, If I have a non-standard model, or if the 336 era is just too broad for the typical value book to cover the variations over time.
The barrel reads:
The Marlin Firearms Co. NEW HAVEN, CONN, U.S.A.
EST 1870-MICRO-GROOVE BARREL-MOD. 336. CAL. 30-30
SN 69 39xxx
Nicely grained (for the era)straight walnut stock with a plain dry, dull, open pored finish, banded capless forearm, 20" barrel, full length tube, gold trigger, brass saddle ring and stud, factory D&T, hooded brass bead front sight, typical open rear sight (personally I wouldn't call it a classic buckhorn, but I think that is the term commonly used), everything else is nicely blued for the era with the top and bottom of the receiver having more of a matt finish.
What is it?
Thanks for your time.