having it and being able to put my hands on it right now during construction are 2 diff things, h :fish opefully tomorrow. or go to marlinowners.com.
sorry, I've found 3-4 things I thought lost forever and lost a whole lot more during improvements. I may just stumble on it any sec but don't hold your breath unless you look good in blue. I believe I got the info from marlinowners.com. my 1952 336sc ser # starts j52, the 1973 however starts 270 and nowhere does it have 73 in it. later they began using double letters to start again ex aa,bb,etc. my list only covered true marlins, pre-rem. don't quote me but near gg would be getting close to remlin time. the quality of wood is a give away as well as the trigger safety= remlin. the 1952 is black walnut, the 1973 is reg Am walnut, today would be birch I imagine.
Was doing some reading last night, and they say if the barrel has a JM stamp on it, then you have a true Marlin. Now some of the JM stamped barrels did make it to the Remington factory so you also have to check the year it was made. Found all this on the Marlin owners forum. Hope that helps some!
+1 on the jm stamp. another big clue, but not quite 100%. it should be on the left side of bbl near the reciever.
