Mill Creek did this with a ton of the Doc Steen stuff which sold in May 2015 at a lesser known auction house. At one point I offered them some of my signed M101-2s from that collection for twice what I paid, but still 50% below their markup on their M101-2s. Their response literally was “No, why would I do that?” So, it’s not like they think the items are worth 4x what they are worth. They just know on rare items that a whale will come along once in awhile and bite. I suppose the business model only works when You can mark it up five times their purchase price.
So they still have stuff from the Doc Steen collection on eBay some 6 years later, including these 3 photos at the link below. Sometimes these items become more or less museum pieces than collectibles.
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fro...=0&_odkw=stein
They purchased the Bill Lee for $50, and they’ve had it listed at $260 for the last 6 years!
https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item...otograph-10-x8
https://www.ebay.com/itm/233692419729