Marlin Serial Number Lookup: Year of Manufacture by Prefix, Model and Date Code

Last updated October 10, 2026

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You’ve got a Marlin on the bench and you want to know how old it is. On most of them the first two characters of the serial number will tell you. The hard part is knowing whose word you’re taking for it.

Here’s something most lookup pages skip. Marlin never published a key to its own serial numbers. We read its website FAQ as it stood in five different years and the site Ruger runs today, and there isn’t a date table on any of them.

So this page is built in layers. Where the factory ledgers survive, we send you to the museum that holds them. Where Ruger has spoken, we quote Ruger. And for the years in between, we print the Marlin Firearms Collectors Association’s table, checked against the association’s second list, with every disagreement flagged.

Table of Contents

Used Marlins for Sale Right Now

These are the lowest-priced used Marlins our dealers list right now, pulled live, so the old .22 autoloaders lead and the lever guns are a click away in the full list.

See every used Marlin in stock.

Where to Find the Serial Number on a Marlin

Marlin moved the serial number around over the years, so where you look depends on what you’re holding. The table has the spots we could put a source to.

Source: Marlin Firearms instruction manuals and the Marlin Firearms Collectors Association forum, How old is my gun. Accessed October 10, 2026.

On the tang guns you often have to work the lever to see it. The collectors association puts the early 336 and 39A numbers on the lower tang, under the lever, and the later ones on the upper tang. If the gun is loaded, unload it before you start swinging the lever around on the kitchen table.

Copy down every character, letters included, and note whether a letter is upper or lower case. Then read it again in good light. A worn 3 passes for an 8 very easily, and on a Marlin the first two characters are the whole game.

How Marlin Serial Numbers Work

Marlin’s numbering changed more than once, and the records behind it are uneven. This is the short version, with the source for each era named in the last column.

Sources: Marlin Firearms FAQ, archived copy from 2018; Cody Firearms Museum; Marlin Firearms Collectors Association forum; Marlin Firearms customer service. Accessed October 10, 2026.

Look at the gap. Marlin’s own FAQ says the old records are quite complete for 1883 to 1906, and then says flatly that records after 1906 are not available. Nothing the company published picks the story up again until Ruger’s RM prefix.

Collectors filled that gap themselves. Marlin’s website points owners to the Marlin Firearms Collectors Association, which it describes as an independent organization, and the association’s reference post says it was copied from the MarlinOwners site with its members’ additions. Every Marlin lookup we’ve seen online rests on a table like it, ours included. The difference is that we tell you.

Marlin Serial Number Prefixes by Year, 1939 to 2006

This is the collectors association’s table, copied line for line from the reference post a moderator put up in 2009. We then checked each line against a second list posted on the same site in 2005. The third column tells you how the two compare.

Source: Marlin Firearms Collectors Association forum, Answer to your Questions on How old is my gun, a moderator’s reference post from 2009, checked against the 2005 list in How-To Determine Year of Manufacture. This is a collectors’ table, not a Marlin factory record. Accessed October 10, 2026.

The association heads its table for the Model 336 and the Model 39-A. Its 2005 list says the coding applies to serialized rifles, and the posts on other models use the same prefixes. A plain number with no letter on an older Marlin predates these codes, so don’t force it through the subtraction rule.

Three stretches need care. For 1960 through 1962 the two lists don’t line up: the 2009 table gives T, U and V a year each, while the 2005 list has no T and starts U and V each August. Both lists give 1964 two letters, Y and Z. And 1968 has two prefixes, AD early in the year and 68 late.

The numbers after 1972 are where people trip. From 1973 the first two digits count down, and you subtract them from 100 to get the year. The 2005 list gives its own examples: serial 2512345 is 1975 and 94365295 is 2006. The countdown passes through 00 for 2000 and carries on to 99 for 2001.

How to Check the Answer Against the Gun

A prefix is a clue, not proof, so check it against things Marlin did put in writing. Its FAQ says cross-bolt safeties were added to the entire line of rifles in 1984. On the collectors’ table 1984 is prefix 16. A lever gun with a factory cross-bolt and a prefix that reads earlier than that deserves a second look.

Two more dates come straight from Marlin. Its history page puts the introduction of Micro-Groove rifling in 1953. And the FAQ says the black and white bullseye in the stock has been on all Marlin walnut buttstocks since 1922. Neither dates a gun to the year, but both will catch a mismatched barrel or stock.

Marlin 336 Serial Numbers

The 336 is the gun most people are asking about. The association dates its start to June 1948, which is prefix E on the table, and every prefix from there to 2006 applies. On these the number moved from the lower tang to the upper tang along the way.

The Glenfield versions follow the same numbers. In the association’s thread, a Glenfield 30A with a serial starting 19 gets the answer you’d expect: 100 minus 19 is 81, so 1981. We’ve got a season in the deer woods behind our Marlin 336 review, and a new 336 Classic starts at $999.99 with the sellers we track.

Marlin 39A Serial Numbers

The 39A shares the 336’s prefixes. Since the association dates the 336 from 1948, the A for 1939 and B for 1940 at the top of its table can only be 39A codes. Those two lines appear on the 2009 table only. Our Marlin 39A buyer’s guide goes deep on the variations, the takedown screw and what the rifles sell for.

One 39A run has real paper behind it. The Cody Firearms Museum holds presentation records for the Model 39A and 39M made for Marlin’s 90th anniversary in 1960, and it says customer data may be available for those guns.

Marlin 1895 and 444 Serial Numbers

The modern .45-70 Model 1895 is the awkward one. The association’s own posts disagree about its B prefix. The 2009 table says the first year, 1972, used B0. A moderator answering owners in the other thread says B guns ran from 1973 to 1976, and in a later reply up to 1977. We don’t decode a year from it.

After the B guns, the 1895 uses the same two-digit countdown as the 336. The association’s notes on the 444 run the same way: AA through AD and then 69 to 71 on the first rifles, 27 down through 17 on the 444 Sporter, and 16 down through 00 on the 444SS.

We’ve shot the Ruger-built gun hard for our Marlin 1895 SBL review, and it’s in our roundups of the best .45-70 rifles and the best .444 Marlin rifles. A new Model 1895 starts at $1,359.99 with the sellers we track.

Marlin 1894 Serial Numbers

There are two rifles called the 1894. The original belongs with the antiques further down this page. The modern one, in the association’s notes, dates from about 1969 and uses the same prefixes as the 336. The S that joined the model name in 1984 marks the cross-bolt safety, which fits Marlin’s own date for it.

Ruger’s version is covered in our Marlin 1894 review. A new Model 1894 starts at $992.99 with the sellers we track.

Marlin Model 60 and Other .22 Rifles

Got a Marlin .22 with no serial number at all? That’s normal. The association says Marlin’s rimfires, other than the Model 39 series, didn’t carry serial numbers until the law required them after 1968.

What those rifles have is a two-letter date code. The association says it was stamped on the left side of the barrel, just in front of the receiver, from 1962 through 1968. The first letter is the month and the second is the year, so JK is October 1967.

Source: Marlin Firearms Collectors Association forum, How old is my gun and How-To Determine Year of Manufacture. Both posts print the same key. A collectors’ key, not a Marlin factory record. Accessed October 10, 2026.

Don’t confuse that code with the JM in an oval on the barrel. JM isn’t a date. A moderator on the association’s forum calls it the proof mark applied to all Marlin rifles and says it stands for John Marlin.

From 1969 a Model 60 has a serial number, and it reads like any other Marlin: two digits for the year through 1972, then the countdown. In the association’s thread, an owner’s Glenfield Model 60 with a serial starting 70 is a 1970 rifle. Our Marlin Model 60 review covers how the rifle shoots.

After 2006: Remington-Era and Ruger-Made Marlins

The association’s table stops at 94 for 2006. What comes after is thinly documented, and we’d rather show you the thin spots than paper over them.

Sources are linked on each line. The MarlinOwners thread was read on October 1, 2026 and the other pages on October 10, 2026.

The Ruger end of this is solid. Ruger says it acquired the assets of Marlin Firearms from Remington Outdoor Company in 2020 and began building Marlin rifles in late 2021. It says every one of its guns shows Mayodan, NC on the barrel and carries an RM serial prefix. You can read the Mayodan stamp in Marlin’s own photo above.

For an RM gun, skip our lookup and use Marlin’s serial lookup. It returns the model, caliber and ship date. Marlin adds that it’s a reference service and that accuracy isn’t guaranteed. It also says only RM serial numbers return anything, so don’t expect it to know your 1975 gun.

The years between are the weak spot. For the last North Haven guns and the Remington-built rifles from Ilion, all we found was one MarlinOwners forum post, and we’ve quoted it in the table as exactly that. One parts dealer, Midwest Gun Works, says Marlins made after 2009 have either a REP proof mark on the right side of the barrel or an RM serial number.

Antique Marlin Serial Numbers: Models 1881 to 1897

This is the one place real factory ledgers survive. Marlin’s FAQ says the old serial numbers are quite complete for 1883 to 1906, from number 4096 to 355,000, for nine lever-action models. The books themselves sit at the Cody Firearms Museum in Wyoming, and its current list runs a little further, to 355419.

Source: Cody Firearms Museum, Available Serial Number Ranges and its Marlin factory records page. Accessed October 10, 2026.

Notice what isn’t here: a year for each number. The museum doesn’t publish one and neither did Marlin. Cody explains why a simple chart wouldn’t work anyway. Most Marlin production in those years ran in a single number series across all nine models, some numbers have more than one entry, and many lines in the ledgers are blank.

So for an antique Marlin the serial number tells you one thing for free, which is that the gun falls inside the ledger years. The exact date takes a letter from the museum, and we cover how to order one below. If your old lever gun turns out to be a Winchester instead, our Winchester serial number lookup has that maker’s tables year by year.

Marlins Made From 1906 to 1945

Here the paper runs out. Marlin’s FAQ says records after 1906 are not available, and no table on this page covers these guns. All we can pass on are the collectors association’s notes, and it marks several of them with question marks itself.

• It says factory records ceased in 1906 and that the original numbering quit at around 450,000, in about 1913.
• It says the Model 1893 then used the letters A, B, C and D up to about the First World War, and it prints its own guess at the years with question marks around it.
• It says the Model 1936 had no letter prefix from 1936 to 1940 and a B prefix in 1941, and that there was no production from late 1941 to late 1945.
• On the Model 1893 it puts the number under the receiver, just behind the forearm. On later Model 93s and the Model 1936 it puts it on the lower tang, under the lever.

If you own one of these, features date it better than the number does. Our antique firearms guide covers what counts as an antique and why the year matters before you sell.

What the Serial Number Doesn’t Tell You

A year, and on an RM gun a ship date. That’s all the number gives you, and people ask it for a lot more.

• What it’s worth. Condition, caliber and originality set the price. The year only tells you which version you have.
• Whether it’s original. A rebarreled or restocked rifle keeps its number. That’s why the cross-bolt, rifling and bullseye checks above are worth a minute.
• Who bought it. Marlin’s FAQ says the old records don’t include to whom the gun was shipped, and Cody says customer data isn’t available for these Marlins.
• Whether it’s stolen. No public list answers that, and this page doesn’t try. If you have doubts about a gun, call your local police or sheriff’s office and ask them to run the number.

How to Get a Marlin Factory Letter

For a Marlin inside the ledger range, the Cody Firearms Museum will write a factory letter. It says the records confirm model, caliber, barrel length and barrel type along with the date of manufacture. A non-member letter is $80 and is mailed about four weeks after payment.

1. Check the number against the table above. If it isn’t on Cody’s list, there’s no ledger line to find.
2. Call the Records Office at 307-578-4031 before you pay. Cody suggests it, because many blank records exist within the Marlin ledgers.
3. Order through the Marlin factory records page or print the form and mail it. Standard delivery in the US adds $8 per order.
4. If you have several guns, look at membership. Cody says firearms benefits start at $150 a year and include some serial number searches, which it answers by email.

Ruger offers a Letter of Authenticity for the guns it makes. Marlin’s lookup page says it lists the serial number, ship date, model and caliber and nothing beyond that. When we tried the form link on October 10, 2026 it returned a page-not-found error, so ask Marlin customer service at 336-949-5200 how to order one.

For everything between 1906 and Ruger, there is no letter to buy. Ruger says it doesn’t have the parts, equipment or expertise to service pre-Ruger Marlins, and its lookup only answers for RM numbers. The collectors association’s forum is where the people who know these guns answer questions.

What It’s Worth, and Selling It

Now you’ve got a year, or at least a short list of them. The next question is always money, and the honest answer starts with condition. Our gun values guide walks through the NRA condition grades and how to turn a grade into a price.

If you’re selling, put the year in the listing beside the model, caliber and barrel length, and say which source it came from. Our guide on how to sell a gun compares what each sales channel leaves in your pocket. For a private sale, print our free firearm bill of sale and copy the serial number onto it exactly as stamped.

Thinking about what to buy next instead? We rank the current crop in our best lever-action rifles and our best .30-30 lever-action rifles.

Serial Number Lookups for Other Makers

More than one old gun in the safe? We’ve built the same kind of page for six other makers, Ruger included, which owns Marlin now.

• Winchester serial number lookup: Winchester’s own year-by-year tables for the Model 94, the Model 70 and the old lever guns, plus how to order a factory letter from Cody.
• Ruger serial number lookup: Ruger’s own year tables by model for the 10/22, the Mark pistols, the Blackhawk, the LCP and 120 more.
• Browning serial number lookup: The two-letter date code decoded, with Browning’s own dating pages for the Auto-5, Citori, Hi Power and BAR.
• Remington serial number lookup: How to read the barrel date code on an 870, a 700 or an 1100, with factory serial tables for the older models.
• Colt serial number lookup: How Colt’s own online lookup works, the serial ranges that do have years on them, and what an archive letter costs.
• Smith & Wesson serial number lookup: There’s no year chart for these, so it covers what the number format tells you and how to get a factory letter.

Photo credits: the lead photo of the Bicentennial Marlin 336 is courtesy of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum, a public domain image via Wikimedia Commons, with the background widened. The 1897 advertisement is from the Virginia Tech Bugle yearbook, public domain via Wikimedia Commons. The 1895 SBL photo is Marlin Firearms’ own.

Marlin Serial Number FAQ