[PragmaticPulp]

They don’t even necessarily have to be coordinated.

If you’re operating a business that profits from selling collector items, you benefit from headlines about high sale prices. Spending $1.5 million to juice the market and generate excitement could manufacture enough demand and trade volume through follow-on buying frenzies that you come out ahead in volume sales of cheaper items.

Then you’re still sitting on an asset “worth” $1.5m that you can use to play games with taxes (depreciation?) and also use as collateral to secure cheap loans.