I think Blue Duck was the first one to earn REAL money from the sale of his port... back in the days when I started...HSX was actually BUYING ports for real money. Once you earned $200M in value, HSX would pay you $1 for every $1M in port value. I think Blue Duck actually sold his for around $900 or so...
It wasn't long BEFORE MY port hit $200M, that HSX QUIT buying ports. After that time, many players started selling them on eBay... with many ports fetching $200+ or more REAL dollars. There were many ports sold that way....prices depending on how big the ports were, etc...
When the ports were sold, the owners would supply the NEW owners with the usernames and passwords to the port they bought...People who were only playing the game a few months, but had the REAL cash to buy a $1B port were immediately jumped to the top of the LTD Boards - to the envy and disgust of many longer term players who they jumped ahead of... they felt they hadn't "paid their dues" by learning the game... only able to move to the top of the stack by buying their way there.
Over time, port sales became less of a demand, as more and more players were building huge ports.... prices began dropping for ones sold as a result.... today, players may still try to sell ports on eBay, but they do NOT even come close to the amount of money players were getting several years ago...
Port values of $200M or more do not fetch much anymore these days, as HSX has become a well known venue to many movie buffs who have their own ports.
I have not checked eBay for quite some time for HSX ports, but I'm guessing that the price for a big port will be fairly low...again.. I haven't checked, but I'd be surprised if people were willing to pay a real $1 for every $1M in port value like they did in the olden days around here.