Many of the collectors who caused the last price increase where collectors from many years back who only discovered the Japanese tie-ins then and then fought against others in a similar point of discovery. They were not newbies.
Dave has a point here, and I fell into that category that he has mentioned.
As I've posted before, I was one of the lucky few to have most of my collection survive through my childhood and into my adulthood largely intact and in Mint/Near Mint condition. I did lose a few, but not many...
I was also one of the few Americans to get most of the 12 LB's that were released here in the States. I had all of them except the Condorassin, Zaraginian and Brain Mouse, and I actually had doubles of Anarchy and Rainbow Sam. So I had at least
some knowledge of the LB's before I got back into the line in 2000, although it wasn't until late 2002 that I found out about the high end lasers (#'s 89-112). I had seen a couple pop up on ebay, before that, but I didn't actually know anything about them until around November/December of '02.
That being said, I did get into some bidding wars with other ebayers trying to get my hands onto those ever-elusive LB's, and I remember distinctly bidding against someone on the low end LB's, raising the price of the lower ended LB's that I didn't own up to ~ $45.00!
I didn't win the auction of course, but I feel that I tought that guy a lesson.
Not even a week later, I won an auction with the Zaraginian, Condorassin and Tiger Pain for about $15.00! I was so proud...
Anyways, as I go on and on here, the point I'm trying to make is that since there is more knowledge about LB's out there, and since they do in fact pop up on ebay (and other places) on a somewhat regular interval now, people are getting wiser to the fact that these figures aren't quite as rare as sellers were originally claiming they were, and that is helping with prices falling to (at least) somewhat reasonable prices...
