Pink 70 340 Duster goes for $62K on Mecum

The black and yellow Dusters that got the big money were MCACN Gold Certified cars. That means every paint mark on chassis, every bolt nut clamp, plated finish on fasteners, all parts correct for that year, no flaws anywhere on the cars, numbers match, perfect museum quality top tier best of breed cars possible. They are best of the best collector grade cars probably never to be driven trailered to the big shows sit in a museum etc. The high rollers will bid against each other do what it takes to get them cause cars at that level are scarce.

Then we got bozos don't understand what they are and say I can buy a Duster off Craigslist for cheaper? Therefore those Concourse Gold Certified Dusters are not worth it? Sure yeah thats an accurate comparison uh huh pat yourself on the back great observation.
i think part of this is the disconnect from reality. people just flat *** don't understand all the "behind the scenes work" and attention to granular details.

take the plated finish on fasteners for example. first you have to make sure that you have all the fasteners, then that they're all correct and if not go find them suckers. then they gotta get cleaned and inspected. then you can send them out to one of the probably handful of people that know what they're supposed to be plated with and how it's supposed to look and hope that you can get that back on a reasonable turnaround and you stuff doesn't go MIA at their place, in transit or the joint closes up mid job. after nail-biting for two months you finally get your stuff back and it's all perfect, so you throw that in the bin labeled "fasteners" with all the other stuff you've cleaned, painted or bought NOS and paid thru the nose for.

congrats, now you have 10K wrapped up in fasteners for your resto.

and it's like that for everything on a car at that level.