It is, once again, a matter of supply and demand.
I bought my Nakayama a couple of years ago for 150 Aus$. It is pictured somewhere in this thread. At that time Lynn still maintained that a Nakayama was no better than an Escher for final polishing razors. I bought one because Ivo Zlatinov (Izlat) had told me about them, and he was at the time one of the very few toying with a Japanes finisher.
Nowadays Lynn says a Nakayama gets him (you as well?) an even better edge so now everyone wants a Nakayama to polish their razors. As the mines near Kyoto have closed supply is limited and prices are soaring. As soon as some hone guru tells us we need vintage hone X, Y or Z you'll see that everyone starts looking for such a hone fuelling an increase in prices for that hone.
Japanese hones have an added inbuilt complexity: not 2 hones have similar honing qualities so every niche has its own hone. As most Japanese hones are sold in Japan and most of us, myself included, do not know Japanese we need a middleman to find us what we need. All this adds to the price of the hone. A similar thing we see with e.g. Eschers: Y/G command higher prices than grey ones. An Escher commands a higher price than a vintage Thuringian. IME ight grey vintage Thuringians are better than most grey Eschers but they command a lower price. Why? Because they miss the label, they were not selected and labelled by Herr Escher himself.
Telly has tried to cut out the middleman in Japan and procure a hone for the 1st 5 who responded to his original post. AFAIK 4 of those received an excellent hone at a reasonable price. Maybe the same hones would have been cheaper 2 years ago, but that's not Telly's fault.
Pasted strops will give you a very nicely polished razor's edge at a fraction of the cost of an Escher or Nakayama. But we hone junkies want what's rare and have to pay the price for our craving.
Do I need my Nakayama? NO! Do I want my Nakayama? YES! Am I gonna sell it? NO. Am I a hone addict? YES.
I bought my Nakayama a couple of years ago for 150 Aus$. It is pictured somewhere in this thread. At that time Lynn still maintained that a Nakayama was no better than an Escher for final polishing razors. I bought one because Ivo Zlatinov (Izlat) had told me about them, and he was at the time one of the very few toying with a Japanes finisher.
Nowadays Lynn says a Nakayama gets him (you as well?) an even better edge so now everyone wants a Nakayama to polish their razors. As the mines near Kyoto have closed supply is limited and prices are soaring. As soon as some hone guru tells us we need vintage hone X, Y or Z you'll see that everyone starts looking for such a hone fuelling an increase in prices for that hone.
Japanese hones have an added inbuilt complexity: not 2 hones have similar honing qualities so every niche has its own hone. As most Japanese hones are sold in Japan and most of us, myself included, do not know Japanese we need a middleman to find us what we need. All this adds to the price of the hone. A similar thing we see with e.g. Eschers: Y/G command higher prices than grey ones. An Escher commands a higher price than a vintage Thuringian. IME ight grey vintage Thuringians are better than most grey Eschers but they command a lower price. Why? Because they miss the label, they were not selected and labelled by Herr Escher himself.
Telly has tried to cut out the middleman in Japan and procure a hone for the 1st 5 who responded to his original post. AFAIK 4 of those received an excellent hone at a reasonable price. Maybe the same hones would have been cheaper 2 years ago, but that's not Telly's fault.
Pasted strops will give you a very nicely polished razor's edge at a fraction of the cost of an Escher or Nakayama. But we hone junkies want what's rare and have to pay the price for our craving.
Do I need my Nakayama? NO! Do I want my Nakayama? YES! Am I gonna sell it? NO. Am I a hone addict? YES.
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What a beauty!!! 
