Modern Vespa

Few days ago I disassembled an engine that came from non running Vespa which by previous owners words stalled while driving and couldn't start it anymore. I thought that crankshaft is bad as it was very hard to turn the engine by hand, seemed like almost locked. First strange thing was that after removing the head, engine started to turn very easy. Checked the camshaft and it was spinning easy so shouldn't be caused by that. As I had decided to disassemble it completely I carried on and after removing the crankshaft I got a bit confused - it had *2 mark on it but the crankcase has mk1 on the outside. I couldn't see any damage in the crankshaft surface or main bearings so not sure what was causing it to spin hard before head removal.
Am I missing something or why is it like this? Anyone had seen anything like this before?

Previous owner bought that Vespa new and he said engine wasn't overhauled while he owned it.

my gts is hard then soft then hard then soft to turn over by hand because I'm fighting against the valve springs (and compression if I've left the sparkplug in).

this kind of hard or consistently hard all the way through the 4 stroke cycle?

The valves are closed on the compression cycle, so you would expect one stroke (half a revolution) to be hard in every two revolutions (with the plug in).

With the plug out you should only be fighting the valve springs as the valves open. In the suck-squeeze-pop-phooey sequence that would be at the start of the suck and phooey cycles.

Sorry for not specifying, but removing spark plug made no difference and it was VERY hard to spin it, had to grab variator pulley with both hands to turn.

Any thoughts on crankcase and crankshaft having different markers?

Yes because you're still fighting the valve springs even with the sparkplug removed

You can't mix Type 1 cases / crank with Type 2. Tolerances are different…