...ahh, but he did mistakenly imply an IV-26 is a Nixie tube. How very dare he, that name is a trademark owned by Burroughs Corporation. BAN THE MOFO! 
I don't think it has anything to do with why he was banned, but IV-26s are VFDs, not neon tubes at all. Why call them Nixies unless you are trying to fool people?
Russian neon devices have the prefix IN-, where the IV- devices are mostly VFDs and a few Numitrons.
And Ian, his prices were actually pretty high... on eBay, you can get 100 IV-26s for $80 delivered.