I was lucky enough to get a case of series 1 when it first came out and then picked up about another 40 sketches off Ebay over the course of six months in 2006,always paying between $15-$30.

Since then I have moved on to other subjects although I do get them out occasionally to look at.I have not followed prices at all and was astounded when I came across some being sold for 5-10 times what I paid for them.

Is this a recent development or have they been increasing steadily over the last six years?My house contents insurance needs to know .

I did much the same, and have 61 sketches from 45 artists. Glad to see we're getting wealthy!

But I beat that with Masterpieces II, where I went for 2 cases and loaded up on auctions for the low end. It looks like I might have tripled my investment in 37 Woodsides.

Don't you just hate all these rich folks?

Those Woodside sketches cost US$0.99 each. They make great stocking-stuffers. And because the NSU Price Guide tags sketch cards at $10-$478 each, I could donate them to charity and let my high-cost accountant (yeah, right) get me a nice tax deduction.

There's a new LOTR sketch card collector and he's looking to add a lot of artist he doesn't have already. And there's the typical collectors who are trying to fill in holes or upgrade like they have been for years but now they are having some new competition, which has raised the prices recently. Once this new collector gets the artists and characters he's looking for I'm sure he will be less willing to over pay for certain cards (at least that's what he's stated).

That explains a lot.I could understand some of the prices for top of the range artwork or artist rarity but there were several that had me puzzled.