I do not support, condone, or endorse the use of gray markets. While I believe they were once legit (but mostly against the TOS) back in the early days of Ultima Online and EverQuest, gold farmers and account hackers have taken over enough of the market to make me suspicious of any person selling something for an online game unless it's though an in-game auction house...and even then it might still be a scam. Also, I am not saying that anyone in Test would every do something like this. However, I am sure there are a few individuals that are either independent or in other orgs that may be considering it.
That said, I suspect that the gray market prices for some of these ships will go up significantly once the game goes live. Especially with the significant amount of credits that will be required to buy some of these in game. I know some may buy these ships so that they can sell them in game for hard currency/bitcoin. I don't think there will be enough in game currency to buy some of these ships at or even near launch for even half the value they would require from an in-game vendor. It would take weeks, if not months of grinding and saving/investing every credit for smaller orgs to acquire the UEC for something like a Javelin....and that's without LTI. Being able to buy a gray market LTI ship? I am thinking 20-100 percent premium once the game goes live depending on supply/demand.
Now, the risks s/he the speculator takes is that
1) the game never goes live (shared by all backers),
2) the demand is not there, hard currency/bitcoin prices drop like a rock and you lose money on the investment.
3) CIG cracks down on the gray market and starts issuing bans left and right to those that buy or sell ship for real currency.
Now, what it could be is that some just want to have a few to loan out/rent out in-game to provide in-game income. If that's a thing, I may decide to rent out of few of my ships as well...but who would want to rent an Aurora...other than someone from Test who has the sole intention of ramming it into some unsuspecting Bengal...