[barrysloate]

Richard not only avidly collected Negro League and Latin American baseball artifacts, but as an artist painted many of the players. Over the last decade of his life he began to sell off parts of his collection, but nothing from these leagues unless it was a duplicate card.

As far as why the prices are strong, more research is being done in this area of baseball, more Negro league players are now in the Hall of Fame, and there appear to be a few collectors who are going after this stuff big time. I guess also that with Richard's collection now being sold the field is garnering more interest.

It appears to be a combination of factors working at the same time.