Indian katar - why so expensive?

[Drabant1701]

Originally Posted by David R

A personal observation only, value is always a shifting paradigm, money available, desirability, rarity and in an auction... competition.

Other than that, really good Katar are rare, the bulk of them that I have seen at arms fairs are fairly plain, and in bad condition.

I agree. I have seen many auctions where competition leads to inflated prices. It may just be people with unlimited funds. But what bugs me here is that normaly I can say; well they payed twice what that was worth. In this case I really can not, it may well be the right price.
Often when things get really expensive it tend to have provenance, or be engraved with the owners name, or be made of jade and diamonds and rubies.
So I thought maybe Im missing something that the experienced collectors (like Jens) will pick up on. Somethinh in the line of; the tiger patterna was only allowed on weapons belonging to the 17th century mugal emperor Soandso.