Why did this No 1 forend sell for so much?

[Roger Payne]

It looks like a new or near new 'old stock' (complete with a few superficial bruises), beech forend produced by BSA Shirley in 1956, as marked. Cannot for the life of me think why it fetched so much as there's nothing special about it that I can see. Maybe we both missed Lawrence of Arabia's initials on it somewhere...! I think sometimes people just let their egos get the better of their common sense, they become determined to 'stop the other guy from getting it' & end up paying far more than it's really worth.