1894 Marlin Safety 32-30 Nickel Steel?

[BuckskinBay]

Recently purchased 1894 Marlin Safety 32-30 Nickel Steel made in 1897 (serial nbr 149xxx). It has a 24 inch octagon barrel and "appears" to be all nickel...not plated. I thought it was stainless when I first saw it but the age indicates it could not be. The seller obtained it from an estate sale and thought it was just cleaned up and polished by the owner (deceased). However, it has no rust and very little tarnishing. Down the barrel it looks clean and shiny, like stainless would look, inside and out. There is no black or bluing anywhere on the gun including the action components. I would think nickel would be too soft to be made into a rifle but a friend says nickel is actually not that soft like gold and silver are. My question to the forum is, did Marlin make such a gun...all nickel? Or, is this just old hard iron steel that has been polished a *beep* of a lot.

(will try to post pictures soon)

Thanks,
BuckskinBay

[BuckskinBay]

Pictures...

[marlinman93]

Hope you get the picture thing worked out. The last links still don't work.
I personally doubt the gun is made of nickel, and don't know of any brand of gun ever made of pure nickel. Likely your guess of it being bare metal polished out is more correct.

[BuckskinBay]

Thanks for the response marlinman93.

Trying again to post the pictures. They are on Flickr. Not sure if that matters.

[marlinman93]

Still doesn't work. Likely not because they're on Flickr, but because you didn't format them to open here.
They need [ ] with img between in front
and the same after, with /img between the parenthesis to work.

[BuckskinBay]

Yep, I know about opening and closing tags. Did that both times.