I can't speak for musical instrument makers or restorers, but from a commercial furniture making perspective I think it went for the right price.
The problem is the whopping great shake which is only visible on the reverse side (scroll right through the photographs at the bottom of the Ebay listing and you'll find them right at the end). That was a big disappointment. You won't know how far those shakes extend or how deep they run until you start cutting, but even if they're fairly superficial you still can't slice the board into two 1" flawless book matched boards. Without the shake that board, married to some lesser quality stuff for less visible components, could have yielded a substantial piece of furniture that would have commanded a commensurately substantial price. But the shake means you're left with smaller stuff like occasional tables, the selling price goes right down and, in my experience at least, clients just don't like spectacular woods for smaller, secondary items of furniture as they tend to dominate a room and look a bit unmatched and out of place.
Saw cut veneer? Possibly, but once you're into veneer it's no longer such unique timber, Capital Crispin have jaw dropping rosewoods in stock today, okay you'll pay a higher price but you'll also have the advantage of multiple consecutive leaves, certainty about what you're buying, and the chance to top up the quantity if you subsequently find you need a bit extra.
So for my money that's a fair price for a lovely, but flawed, piece of wood. And you know what, there's always special boards coming to the market! Right now there's genuine Burmese Teak salvaged from the cargo of a shipwreck, a load of salvaged Thai Rosewood in really long lengths, some truly glorious park grown Elm from the grounds of Hollyrood Palace, some of the best tiger oak I've ever seen is currently on the market, I saw some heavily rippled Ovangkol boards last week that I'm thinking about, and I'm hearing rumours that there were some amazing English Walnut finds from the MAC timbers auction.
