A friend of mine has a .45/70 Contender Hunter, 14"in. Bbl. with Factory muzzle brake. Gun and bbl. are stainless finish, with stainless scope rings included. Excellent condition. Is $ 375 a fair price? Sling and swivels mounted and soft case included also. Lee.

Doesn't sound bad to me for the entire outfit.

I would consider that to be a fair deal. Depending on the scope it might be a good/great deal. You might want to fire this pistol before you buy it. Muzzle break or no, the 45-70 IS a handful in a Contender.

Just a quick followup. If you do not have experience with big bore handguns, go easy. If you stick with the 300 gr. Remington and Winchester factory loads, the ones that are safe for the Springfield Trapdoor .45-70, you will find that you get outstanding accuracy and very little recoil with the excellent Hunter brake. I shoot a 15" Fox Ridge .45-70 with the Hunter brake and the light loaded Rem and Win loads are very pleasant to shoot. Of course, you will want to buy hotter loads later on or better yet, roll your own, but ease into the heavy loads or you will end up hating the piece, and making someone else a very good deal on it.
Then you will see what the Contender is capable of and what the .45-70 is capable of achieving. My deer/anything load is a 300 gr. Barnes X bullet leaving the 15 inch tube at 1890 fps. It does not drop below the minimum velocity needed for expansion, 1600 fps, until 175 yards, but shoots very flat until around 200 to 225. It has dropped a whole lot of deer in their tracks over the last 15 or so years with heart/lung/shoulder shots whereas with deer hit in the same spot with the .44 magnum always ran from 25 to 100 yards. The .45-70 just blows them over almost as if they had been hit in the CNS.
You did not mention that a scope came with it. When you go to scope it, there is only one scope you need to consider, the Leupold 2X EER and please, make your life easier and go with the SSK three or four ring mounts. Two power is all the power you need for the .45-70 within its range of use and you need the wider FOV the 2x offers over higher powered scopes. I had the Leupold 2.5-8x scope on it for years, but was WAY over scoped. That scope went to the more appropriate .309 JDJ and then a straight 2x went on the .45-70. It is all you need and will hold up forever, especially if you get the SSK TSOB mount and rings. I use 4 rings on my .45-70, .309 JDJ, FA .454, but only 3 on my .50 Alaskan. Why only three? The scopes with 4 rings use the older SSK rings that are narrower so 4 rings would fit, with the newer style SSK rings which are wider, 3 is all that would fit on the .50 AK.
Once you work your way to full-power loads, you will absolutely understand why the .45-70 is God's chosen sledgehammer. ;)