Manufacture and type of steel play a big role in the behaviour of the bar: forging a bar that will wind up as a higher content martensite steel (strong and flexible) is hard work and expensive.
That makes sense. I'm not necessarily saying the prices are "bad" because they're more anyway, things have their prices, even if they aren't worth it on a pro-rata basis. Supply, demand and other companies not offering something of the same spec for significantly less, or rather market rate play huge roles in pricing.
However, Eleiko are expensive because they are Eleiko. It is possible to get perfectly awesome bars for half the money or even less. Pendlay, ivanko and Taishan are all vrry skmilar quality for a much lower price bracket.
This makes sense, and I thought as much, I was also under the impression that the majority of places that buy Eleiko were "federation" or official Olypmic gym types of places, where the cost can be justified, to some extent anyway.
I am actually quite interested in getting bumper plates though, they just look that much nicer, and them being all (mostly) the same diameter is a nice plus.