Redwolf, Monkeyboy, kymaera, thanks for the kudos. I also really like the Kougaiji that MB linked to, and almost put it up for the Beta awards, but in the end went with a sketch that I thought had more immediate "street appeal" in its reduced scanned size.
That's one thing, too, about sketches: they often have a physical appeal that requires you to see them. It's not easy to capture in a scan. I think it has to do with the obvious way in which some sketches are creations: you see the evidence of the first levels of drawing, then the refining work in sharper, darker pencil, and often the erased first ideas. It's the part of the production process when the image is created, and this "present at creation" feeling makes many roughs and layouts well worth collecting to me, even of series that are cel-based like Hyper Police, TnN, and MKR.
Redwolf's Winry sketches have that same sort of thrill to them: a great image ... and here's the very sheet (bought by Bones at an AIG garage sale!) where the animator "discovered" it.
And if you have some skill at reanimating sketches (I love the ones monkeyboy did), or if you're lucky enough to have a friend who does, then you get an extra thrill out of owning a long set of dougas. I can't resist adding one small link to the above (thanks again Vamppy!):
Watch Inuyasha squish Myoga!
I didn't give much of a defense of sketches because of the question that was asked (why do people "hate" them) and so I'm glad to see so many strong arguments for respecting this part of collecting.
Concerning the pricing, I did notice about a year ago that starting prices for many series, including dealers' prices and opening bid prices, had gone up sharply. Until then, sets of sketches, even for fairly recent shows, had been much more reasonable than cels. I speculate that, with high end cels starting to dry up, dealers are realizing that to keep their incomes healthy, they need to shepherd the new wave of collectables onto the market with care.
As another thread commented, it was once the practice to drop a lot of inventory at once; then dealers began to pick and choose what gets sold more cautiously. That's why there's so many CCS cels out there that stay fairly reasonable in price, and relatively few IY cels, which stay higher in price, even though there are more IY cels in existence than CCS cels.
So I think it's a careful manipulation of supply and demand. My guess is that as some shows lose their "bloom," the demand will drop and you'll see dealers drop huge lots of stuff on the market, which is the case of Saiyuki sketches, which are artistically great and dirt-cheap ... but that $30 "internal shipping" to get the giant bale of paper you've just won... ow ow ow ow ow!
Heh.
). 
I probably could have seen this coming... I also like showing my cels in their entirety, rough paint edges and all, and have every intention of rectifying my old scans that cut off the registration holes.
