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Marlin factory records
Who holds this maker's production records today, whether a serial table exists at all, and what it costs to have the archive read them.
Marlin is the maker that most often produces the "prime" prefix puzzle — Marlin used a two-digit prefix on many models to indicate the year, which means a Marlin serial can contain its own date if the model is known. The ledgers themselves are at Cody, and the prefix rule is not universal across Marlin product lines, which is where most of the confusion in the forums comes from.
Serial table published by the maker?
No.
No browsable Marlin table from the brand; the prefix convention is documented in collector references and in the ledgers at Cody.
Archive letter
Cost: from $95 (non-member rate)
Waiting time: weeks
Observed 2026-10-14 — confirm with the archive before ordering.
Can a serial number date a Marlin?
From the serial number alone, generally no — and that is the honest answer rather than a gap in this site. There is no published table to compare the number against, so any year you find online for this maker comes from a secondary reconstruction, and those are exactly as reliable as their author.
Dating then rests on what is on the gun: the maker's marking and address, the model and its catalogued period, proof marks and their era, patent dates, and the manufacturer's own model history.
Reference work
Marlin Firearms: A History of the Guns and the Company — William S. Brophy.
Date a firearm by its serial number
The lookup covers only makers that publish their own browsable chart — and it says which, and cites the threshold behind every result.
Open the serial number lookup