I did some additional digging through my reference material and confirmed that the first Texan was indeed manufactured on 2/7/1952 using the receiver with the serrations on top. Sometime in 1953 they transitioned to the sandblasted receiver top.
Would be interested to know if that information is supported by your rifles construction.
I don't know how rare the 336 in 35 Remington is with a straight grip, but they are sure hard to find when you are looking for one. It took me about a year and a half of looking to find one in good shape a couple of years ago. The ammo has been kind of hard to find too, until recently.
like Mathsr said they are definitely not rifles you see every day. I think there are probably more out there than we realize, people just don't want to get rid of them. It took me about a year longer to find mine than Mathsr took to find his, but I was holding out for a really good one and the wait paid off. Mine was made in 1964 and looks like it was not used at all. I've never seen one that didn't shoot well
I've got 2 336-RC .30-30s. Did not know they were anything more than good shooters. I bought them when I was 14yo with the money from my first job. Had told Dad I wanted to hunt deer and he said we couldn't because we didn't have rifles. He thought that was the end of that but....Hell No. A few days later I saw an ad in the paper that K-Mart had these Marlins on sale for $65.00 apiece so I hopped on a bus and put 2 on layaway. A couple of months later when I made my last payment I almost kicked some counter monkey azz because he said I was too young to buy a rifle. Hell, I wasn't too young when they took my money. Took the bus home and had to tell the old man that he needed to sign for 2 rifles I had bought. One for him and one for me. That was the start of an addiction I'm proud to have.