I put Melanie to work with her shovel and she did some digging and came up with this on the new Marlin 60 DLX 50th Anniversary Edition.
The DLX--- S/N was the pre-production number and only 1,000 were made from DLX000 to DLX999. The regular production numbers are DL0000 to DL9999 and only 10,000 will be produced in 2010 then that's it! No more Black Walnut!
So, with that said, this line is still a short run of 11,000, (less than 1/10th of 1% of total production to date), with the first 1,000 of the DLX numbers being a little more collectible somewhere down the road. Bottom Line, these rifles are going to be harder and harder to find as more and more are being put into gun safes for collectibles, and simply put it's the best looking model 60 ever made. If your a Marlin 60 lover you'll want to have one. Bill T.