While I understand the necessity of numbering a barrel to permit the fitting/finishing/reassembling, etc. of the barrel (and its component parts) to a frame, logic tells me that a "bare" barrel that was sold off by the factory will never be numbered.

Logic also states that the number of a complete barrel (and its component parts) that was sold off by the factory will never match a frame that departed the factory long-ago--unless someone forgot to put the finished barrel into a box that was supposed to be a combo, or somehow a barrel returned to the factory and was retained in stock.

So, if this logic is true, why would any of these sold off barrels ever match a frame that was numbered around 100 years ago and has been out in the wild ever since?

This possibility may, however, simply be beyond my limited knowledge of how the Mothership worked back in the day.