A thousand is pretty much normal now for anything of quality. Lever guns are more complicated to machine and assemble than a Glock or a PSA AR-15. I think the actual cost is just coming back to reality vs. the cheap Marlins we remember that they were probably losing money on. Even 'cheap' Rossi's are way up in price now. Somewhere along the line, and i'm the same way, we started to think of lever actions as the cheap guns and it's just not that way anymore.like others I just don't get more than $1,000 for a lever gun. Much less 3.
for that I'd go find a classic JM rather than an untested brand.