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I'd sure want to see the barrel with the forearm removed! I bet you'll find a cut under the barrel for a manual extractor, which would mean it's a leftover Brown barrel on a later Marlin #1.5 Ballard.
I've seen some go that high, but were in better shape with no pitting. Too bad it's so rough, but that seems to be what I've observed over the years. Either they are decent and too expensive, or rough and not desirable. That one is both rough and too expensive.

Yes, and even frames leftover had serial numbers, and JM Marlin stamps on them. Marlin went so far as to work down metal where needed to reuse the old Brown parts and stamp them.
My #4 is a leftover Brown gun with Brown receiver, lever, hammer, trigger, and buttplate. All matching serial numbers, right down to the newly patented Marlin ejector system, and JM Marlin marked frame. Marlin was under contract with Schoverling and Daly to assemble Ballards, and S&D took all the parts and machinery after Brown failed in making Ballards for S&D, and gave it all to Marlin to build guns. Every part Marlin could use saved them the cost of making those parts from scratch, so they used it up while they were also gearing up to build new parts from scratch. If they found a few more parts later after they began their own production, they simply assembled those parts into more guns, so there are some mixtures of different eras along the way.
They never stopped this process, even when they later went on to produce lever action repeaters. I owned a 1894 carbine that had a barrel with model 1889 rollstamps, a modified 1889 receiver, 1889 one piece firing pin in an 1894 breechblock, 1894 lower tang, and all serial numbers matched! It lettered as being done in the first month of production for the 1894 model. When Bill Brophy looked at it he  was just getting his book ready for printing, and said he had never seen a factory 1894 with so many mixed parts; and also said he noted in his book he'd heard of such, but never seen one, so he planned to change it on the 2nd printing, but died before it happened.

Here are some pictures of the 40/65, 1 1/2, I spoke of earlier. I was wrong about the serial number, it's 14XX instead of the 3 digit that I mis-remembered.

It's a excellent rifle with a very good bore. The CC is better than it looks in the pictures, the flash did them no good.

Frank

Frank,
With the octagonal barrel, isn't that .40-65 a #4 Perfection rifle? The 1 1/2s came with round barrels...and that is the main difference between the two.

Nonetheless...that surely is a nice one with the early loop on the lever. The wood is especially nice, too...so many #1 1/2s and #4s were hard-workin' guns with rather plain wood on them.

I agree, I believe that's a #4 Pefection. It certainly has all the features of a #4. If it wasn't for the windage adjustable tang sight, I'd have said it was a good price. But if it comes with that sight, I'd say it's a very good price.
I've seen the early Ballards with that lever and all sorts of variations in the pin and hole. Some levers have no pin hole, and neither did the frame. Some had both pin and hole, and some had the hole, but no pin. That's the early Brown lever, but not the Brown hammer, or trigger. It's also the early deep curve buttplate. A nice example of the mixture of parts that Marlin often did on early guns.

xtimberman wrote on Mar 9^th, 2014 at 6:24pm:


That's what I've found. I've not seen enough #1 1/2 Ballard rifles to compare, but those I've seen have been priced lower than a #4. I've often thought the earlier 1 1/2 with round top receiver is less common, and not as nice looking as the later octagon top, but prices don't seem to differ on which style receiver the 1 1/2 has.

xtimberman wrote on Mar 10^th, 2014 at 12:27pm:


Dutcher mentioned the same in his book. He felt the #4 caused the demise of the 1 1/2, as they were so similar, but the #4 caliber selection overlapped the 1 1/2, plus the octagon barrel was more pleasing to buyers.