Why are so many people trying to sell Harbeths?

Having had a very nice audition with the Harbeth 40's years ago, I was really impressed, and to this day, I feel sure that I would be happy with them for a long time if not forever. Having said that, I have been shocked at the price increases. I recall that when I read the first review of the 40's on enjoythemusic.com, they were around $6500. A couple of years later, they were around 12k. Now they're around 16k? I assume that the good reviews made Alan think he had underpriced them, but gee...

Mapman - you are correct that was Vu's "budget" room and I (and JOND) both left quite impressed with the new version of the 30.2's. They were the speaker to beat at tat price point. That said, they or anything else I heard at CAP-fest couldn't compare to Vu's custom/Western Electric setup - WOW!

Re; Harbeth price .
US dollar has lost over 25% against Euro in last year and that’s the "official "
rate than about 5 banks in the world get .
My neighbor just got back from France, said she got 70 cents Euro for a buck both with AmEx and Visa at ATM's .
Not sure about the pound but English firms do look at Euro to keep profit margin close in all markets .

That doesn't account for the extreme rise, and it happened well before last year.

A number of years ago (10 or 15?) I read that when Harbeth started getting more popular they had to decide whether they wanted to upscale the company to meet demand or raise prices and keep their production capabilities stable.  They decided to raise prices.  I believe it was a John Marks post on audio asylum where I read this but I'm not 100% sure.  

You can definitely appreciate why they'd want to do this.  If they grow the company and expenses when there's a Harbeth fad they'll be in a tough spot when the fad is over.  If they see the enthusiast as their core customer rather than the fad follower they don't want to become dependent on the fad follower.