Oh, shame on him for painting for the ‘dregs’. What a snob.
He wasn’t painting “for the dregs,” he was painting to make cash off the dregs. He was a huckster who sold “collectibles” that in reality were worth a fraction of what he was selling them for. Sort of like those gold coins that Franklin Mint tries to pawn off at outrageous prices; the suckers who fall for it later find out they could have bought a regular bullion coin for a fraction of the cost with a higher resale value.