Yesterday I went to a gun show with absolutely no intentions of buying anything. I have way too many irons in the fire right now (gun related stuff and life in general) and I've gotten to the point that very little easily obtainable stuff gets me fired up anyway. I had no cash to speak of handy and just went to tag along with my buddy who was on a mission to find a particular handgun, which he found. We paid our $8 admission and started down the first isle when three tables in, this .444 jumped out and grabbed me. I saw it and hoped it was a .45-70, which I do not want and could have painlessly walked away from. A .444 has always been on my "list" but I kept putting it off because they were common and easy to get. Then the Remington fiasco happened and "good" Marlins got scarce and went through the roof. Clean, "good" .444s have gotten ridiculous on GunBroker and I just kind of pushed a .444 out of my mind, until yesterday. This one was as clean as new and obviously had a little age on it because of the lack of safety and its uncheckered wood, which I much prefer. He had $650 on it, which seemed reasonable in these times of "JM Marlin" madness. But alas, I only had a couple hundred on me and I don't do ATMs so I walked. The thought of it haunted me all night. I knew I'd never find a cleaner specimen for that dough and had it been a weekday, I'd have gone to the bank. Ashamed to say that during church this morning, my mind kept drifting back to the Marlin. After I took the wife and my mom to lunch, I had a thought. A good friend had a table at the show so I called him on his cell and asked him to go ask the seller for a phone number so I could contact him if he still had the gun. He did and while he was talking to the guy, he asked him (without my prompting) if he was firm and I heard him say "I'll take $600." On a whim, I asked Chuck to ask him if he'd take a personal check, which I doubted. I was surprised when he said he would, so I asked Chuck to ask him to hold it for an hour so I could go home and fetch the check book and drive back to the fairgrounds. So I paid him half cash and wrote a check for the other $300 and brought it home.

Honestly, I think it is unfired. It is a pre-safety 444S, dates to 1979 and still has the factory screws in the top of the receiver and the sticker on the forend. A few tiny little insignificant marks on the stock is all I can find. It has a sling that looks similar to the original Marlin slings but does not have the Marlin stamp, so may not be original.

I "needed" another brush gun like I need woman trouble but life would have been hard to face had I let this one go. I'm sure no of you have ever felt that way, have you???

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