Thread: Why is boar so much cheaper?!

So I've really been enjoying some older boar brushes these days that I bought on eBay, so much so that I'm thinking about selling my old stand-by Rooney brush and just going with boar from now on. The boar just makes better lather and feels better on my face in the morning. To cap things off, I even found a cool, new Semogue brush to purchase at Vintage Scents (photo below).

Now here's what's bothering me. To buy a silvertip badger brush that is even considered "middle of the road" costs $75-125, and many people seem to buy brushes that cost $200 or more. But this new, supposedly top-of-the-line Semogue that I bought cost about $30 including shipping, and most of the other brushes were $20 or less.

So how can a silvertip badger brush cost 5 to 10 times what a similar quality boar brush costs? I understand that many people like badger rather than boar, of course, but does that mean that the price disparity is entirely based upon "whatever the market will bear"? If so, that is kind of shameful, innit?