Absurd, Havoc. Polyester costs around $4 to $12 apiece for 3x3 inch, for example, but new gels $30 up to $75 or so, depending. I think you're confusing these with thicker acrylic resin filters, similar to colored plexiglas, which are optically very clear, but scratch easily and are prone to reflections.
Sometimes "new old stock" gel filters show up inexpensively on EBay simply because they've been gathering dust on some dealers back room shelf for three decades, and they simply want to get rid of them. A discounter who has quite a selection of new old filters is filterfind.net.
But the problem in this case is finding filter sizes large enough for a tricolor sheet film camera. Large gel sheets are quite expensive, but easy to cut down.
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