Yup -- think Alawen nailed it. Only bit I'd add is that there are 2 issues that affect the price of an item. 1) utility and 2) rarity. Or in other words, demand and supply.
1 - as documented above, the manastone is bar-none the most useful item in the game through at least Kunark, and arguably Velious, for clerics, druids, and wizards. It literally means more to these characters than any other piece they could possibly have, with the exception of epics. It is also extremely useful for any other class that uses mana -- even a nice toy for necros -- but literally #1 for clerics/druids/wizards. And given the fact that clerics are the most irreplaceable and demanded class in game, druids are currently the most common class in game, and wizards become incredibly OP'd burst DPS in Kunark and Velious, I'd say there are plenty of people that will be demanding manastones. And to any of the 3 main classes of use, it is worth whatever it costs to attain one, which will continuously drive the price higher and higher as more plat gets amassed and manastones for sale become rarer.
2) Obviously, the manastone is incredibly rare. No new manastones can be attained. Though, as Alawen stated, there are roughly 300 on the server, I'd guesstimate that about 50 of those are irretrievably lost -- on banned accounts, or accounts of players that have (or will have) quit permanently by Kunark release. I'd guesstimate that another 150 of those will never see the market, because they're being stashed by players that intend to use them or just hold onto them for sentimental value/future alts/future investment. Most of the people on this server that have manastones really aren't scrapped for plat. That leaves about 100 for the server population that isn't part of the "old money" of P99. Now even of these, you're talking about plenty that will be bought and kept for mains. And this server is expanding daily. Within 6 months or so, I think it will be hard to find a manastone for sale at all, at any reasonable price. Eventually, they all hit players that need them for mains, and won't look to re-sell. Sooner or later, every manastone hits a dead end, because there's literally no improvement for it. It's not like they get recycled by the end-game players. Once they reach the right main, they are essentially off the market forever, or at least unless the person decides to re-roll. Supply is low already, and lowering every week.
Population increases. Demand increases. Supply decreases. The rest should be obvious.
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