Agree with MontoyaFan (again)

I think this is just a spike in the so-called market. Good old fashioned bidding war (as the list of bids indicated). Just like we shouldn't take Barrett-Jackson auction sales prices to benchmark a car, I don't think there's much more to glean from this one particular auction other than two people wanting a 7/10 set of taillights REALLY bad, RIGHT now.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, here's the auction where I just scored some clutch parts - as an eBay seller sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you you get hosed.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8005852303

Think I'll just paint my faded and pitted centers semi-gloss black or charcoal. You can spend a half an hour polishing the lenses until they look new. I can't justify that kind of money for such an insignificant piece. Hell, you can carefully remove the center piece and ship it out to some place like Mr G's Mustangs, and have them rechromed.

'72 white stocker, perfect

'73 silver stroker, nice

'72 orange straight, project

Probably just a case where 2 guys needed them urgently (inspection, hot date, z club meet etc coming up) didn't see any other sets on ebay at the time and so assumed they're rare parts. Oh and didn't bother to check the completed items search. That seller got lucky.

The Seller got lucky and as Will said, this is an honest, straight up seller, ebay needs more like him.

He could have bought a whole damn car for that

If you look at the bidding history for the item, the high bid was the result two bidders getting into a war. I have purchased two NOS sets of taillights from Ebay seller newdatsunparts within the last year. Neither set, including a JDM spec set for my Fairlady Z, came close to this final auction price and that was purchasing them at his "buy it now" price. The two bidders were either desperate for an immediate set, unknowledgeable as to the actual value of the parts or they simply let ego get in the way.