09/06/2026
THIS is why we love what we do.
Sometimes the most fascinating piece in an auction isn’t the biggest, prettiest, or most valuable.
Sometimes it’s a worn little revolver that creates an incredible connection to the past.
This is a J.M. Marlin ### Standard 1872, serial number 2660, manufactured in New Haven during the formative years of John Mahlon Marlin’s gunmaking business.
Think about that for a moment.
This was before Marlin became the legendary American fi****ms manufacturer generations of sportsmen would come to know. John M. Marlin was himself a machinist and gunmaker, building the business that would eventually put the Marlin name among the giants of the American fi****ms industry.
Can we prove that John Marlin personally machined a part, fitted this revolver, inspected it, or held serial #2660 in his own hands? No.
But it was produced in his operation, during those early years, while John Marlin himself was actively building his fi****ms business.
The possibility that this very revolver passed through his hands nearly 150 years ago is pretty incredible.
And now we're holding it.
Look past the patina, wear and scars of nearly a century and a half. You're looking at an artifact from the earliest chapters of a company that would become an American fi****ms institution.
That connection to the people who actually made history is one of the coolest parts of the auction business.
This piece of early Marlin history will cross the auction block October 10 in Epic Auctions & Estate Sales' Fall Military & Sporting Arms Auction.
Sometimes you don't just sell an old gun.
Sometimes you get to hold history.
