Great thread - Don't think I'll ever read all 140 pages of posts! Here's the story of my 39:
I don't know how old my 39 is, but it was a gift to me from my Grandfather, given to me when I was in the 7th grade, after I'd earned my BSA Rifle Shooting merit badge.
He took me out hunting rabbits at my uncle's place, and afterwards back at his basement he ran me through how to disassemble and clean the Stevens single shot 20 ga I'd been hunting with. While I was working on the shotgun, he disappeared upstairs and came down with the 39, and said I needed to know how to clean a rifle, too. When we were done he said "This gun is my favorite, my pride and joy, and I want you to have it - take good care of it." I think it was inside of a year later that he died from a heart attack. Thinking back on it now, he knew his time was short, and it makes me choke up to this day to know that he made sure to give it to me personally while he could. It means so much; I didn't get to spend near the amount of time with him that I wanted to back then.
In high school I bought my own 77/22 so I could take my dad after squirrels without him having to borrow a rifle, but my grandpa's 39 will always be my sentimental favorite. The 77/22 gives the 39 a run for the money in accuracy, but needless to say when I moved out, the 39 went with me. My dad recently bought his own, new one to replace it.
I've not done enough research to figure out exactly how old mine is... when I got it from my gramps, it had an old Weaver 4x scope on it with an objective lens of about 13mm. He used to use it for general plinking, small game, and nighttime coon hunting. The mount for it was drilled and tapped into the barrel! The original hooded front post and rear folding semi-buckhorn were in the package from the Weaver scope mount. I still have all of it. It has no safety other than a half-cock hammer, blued trigger, and no provision for a hammer spur.
A few years into high school I drilled and tapped the receiver top for a more modern 39 scope base/ring combo and mounted a cheap-ish Simmons 3-9x44 scope - with that setup, was able to easily drop many a squirrel with one in the head - some out to 100 yds! A hammer spur would be nice to have, since the modern scope doesn't allow much thumb clearance between the ocular lens to safely cock or decock it on a loaded chamber.
The receiver came tapped for a micrometer rear peep. Have been thinking lately of pulling the scope for a while and getting a rear peep to teach my own sons the use of iron sights...