doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Marlin Model 39 Star tang .22 cal Rfle Octaganol

Not sure, but it appears your 39 might be blued over the color cased receiver, and lever? If so, that will hurt value quite a bit. Bolts and hammers were blued, but not receivers and levers.
If this is cold blue, then rust remover will take it off and leave whatever case colors were underneath. I've done this on old Marlins that were blued, and if they didn't polish the metal first they come out fine. Even when hot blued the bluing still comes off and leaves whatever case colors were there.
Looks like your 39 had a tang sight also,as those screws are sight base screws, and not the usual factory plug screws.
And your barrel has the "Corporation" rollstamp, so it's one assembled soon after Frank Kenna bought Marlin from bankruptcy, and those barrels were used for a year or two until they switched to the newer rollstamp. Yours also has the Marlin "Bullseye" in the stock that started around 1924, and was used up until the Depression.
Some bolts were replaced by the factory to High Speed, but your great picture shows yours still has the low velocity style bolt, so standard velocity, or target velocity ammo should be the only ammo fired in it.
If this gun had strong original case colors they go in the $1500-$1800 range. If there's bluing over the case colors it's half as much. If the wood finish is non original, then that's a little less. But yours appears to be the high sheen used then, and wood to metal fit looks great too.

Yes.. you are correct. The gun was blued over and the stock refinished as well. That was my fault. I received the rifle when i was 16 from my grandfather. And a young 16 year old did not know any better, and i thought a shiny looking gun was thing to have. Anyway i do recall this was done with a sporting goods store rifle refnishing kit that i had purchased 38 years ago. I will probably never part with the rifle. I was more interested in the history of the rifle and its potential "original" worth. Thank you guys for all the responses, i learned alot about the history of the Marlin 39

Since it was blued over using a cold blue, you could likely remove it with good results, unless you sanded it first? This is a deluxe 1894 Marlin I removed the hot bluing from. Not a lot of case color left, but I think it looks better than the "purple" hot bluing did.

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After:

Thanks. I am going to try Birchwood Casey Blue And Rust Remover too see if that brings it back