How much would you pay for a ball python morph?

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Originally Posted by Melicious

Hn. I knew that lacy one would come in handy!

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:tongue2: :fest: :rofl:

I marked $500 to $1000.I had a hard enough time realizing i paid $600 for my pastel last year.I only paid $800 for my pair of 100% het albinos and thats with a partner.Maybe someday i might hit the lottery :rolleyes: and buy everything at a who cares price lol.

I answered this question from the "pet" perspective. IOW, a ball you didn't intend to breed and generate of return other than just pure enjoyment. My spider, to me, was an investment, but I probably would have bought one relatively soon anyway- spiders are one of my favorite morphs.

If I were to invest in morphs for breeding, the amount of money I'd spend on an individual morph would increase proportionally with the amount of capital I had to start with, so technically, the sky would be the limit.

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Originally Posted by joepythons

I marked $500 to $1000.I had a hard enough time realizing i paid $600 for my pastel last year.I only paid $800 for my pair of 100% het albinos and thats with a partner.Maybe someday i might hit the lottery :rolleyes: and buy everything at a who cares price lol.

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Yeah...the "who cares what price it is" is a somewhat misleading option. Because that would be my choice....and yet money IS an object. :2cent: I am a patient sort and am quite willing to start with hets and work my way up to more and more expensive morphs. When I say "who cares what price it is" I only mean I'd be WILLING to pay the money if I had it....not that I currently do. :P

I would be willing to pay as much as $5000 for a BP morph I really liked. We've paid that much for some Boas and have no regrets whatsoever. We love our snakes and hope to continue to add to our collection.

My problem is the BP morphs I liked at $4500-$5000 early this year are now $1500-$2000. Meaning by stalling 6 months we've saved $3000-$3500. Sounds great huh? But, what if we had paid the $5000?

Maybe it's a girl thing, for example: About 6-7 weeks ago I bought a DVD player for $150.00 on a Wednesday. On Friday within my junk mail I saw the same exact DVD player on sale that weekend for 20% off from the same store! I took the DVD player with the receipt in hand back to the store and was able to get that 20% credited to my credit card. :mad:

We're just talking $30.00 and I was somewhat pissed no one bothered to tell me "this weekend we're going to have a 20% sale on these DVD's in case you want to come back this weekend". Again...we're just talking about $30.00!!

Can you imagine if you bought a new 06 Honda Accord today at $25,000 and in December that same exact new 06 Honda Accord would cost you $8500?:tricho:

Forget breeding, sales, profits or the market! I would simply feel like a fool or as if I just got taken for a sucker if I bought something today at $5000 and saw it for sale all over the place in 3-6 months for $1500!

Again, maybe a girl thing..;)

I could have worded the question "How much could you afford to pay for a ball python morph?"....but that is a bit invasive into everyones personal finances. I could have said also said "How much would you pay for a ball python morph as an investment?" or "How much would you pay for a ball python as a pet?" ;)

I figured the broader question would spark some good discussion at the least :D

Personally, I would not be bothered dropping $2000 or even more on an animal with no potential return on that money...actually, I plan on getting a spider this year if finances allow. Will I breed her?...sure. Will I be looking for a return on the money I put into her?...nope. I look at breeding snakes as fun hobby....actually, if I was producing animals...I would be just as likely to give them away to a friend or family member as I would be to sell them....hell, i have even sold some reptiles this year for less than I paid for them just because I knew they were going to a good home and the people seemed nice.

After all, people spend thousands of dollars on just about any other kinda pet out there. My brother bought a $1300 bulldog the other day...if some people like an animal, they will pay. On the other hand, I have talked to people that would never pay over $1000 for a reptile even if they had the cash sitting around.

Just looking for everyone's opinions on spending money on reptiles and such :D

I think Wysocki says it best when he talks about not getting in over your head and not being financially ruined if something goes wrong. I have taken this advice and feel more comfortable spending money on ball python morphs. For me personally this is a professional hobby. Professional in the literal sense that I need/want for it to have a return. If it where not for the return aspect of the hobby I would probably keep "normal" wild type ball pythons as I think they are just as beautiful. However I am in 10k+ per animal category because I'm interested in both facets of the hobby. I have a small collection though that does not put me out of control physically or financially. This is a dangerous line that is drawn though and I can see where that line can/could be easily crossed. I wish everybody the best of luck and truly enjoy being part of this group :grouphug:

i think reptiles being a minority in the pet world has alot to do with it. people spend alot of money on dogs,birds, and horses. reptiles aren't mainstream, i kind of like it that way. a specialty niche if you will. personlly i'd spend up to around a 1k for a pet reptile, maybe a little more. higher than that i consider it an investment. to me it's cool that i can have snakes as a hobby and also the chance to make a little money too! i can't do that with cars or fishing! lol



vaughn

Let me start off by saying if I had more money to invest I would have bought a Pied by now.So in my case I would buy the morph's I really like knowing I could afford them responsibly. I'll admit when friend's and family ask how much I paid for my morph's I don't tell them and the one's that know , already know I'll at least try to make my money back. I've already got half of what I really want with my albino and pastel now I'm looking forward to getting a pied and a spider don't know in which order if i had to guess I'd say spider first.Purchasing a Homo pied would be a little bit of a stretch for my wallet at least right now.

I picked the 10000+ catagory, as we have already spent more than that on some animals, and I would do it again if it is an animal that I really like and want. Bananna for instance, would definitely have me opening up my checkbook. The people who are really worried about losing money on an investment animal are crazy. Everybody is so focused on the short term, that they think they are losing money just because a morph drops 50% in one season. The morph you buy, can potentially breed for you for 15+ years, and if you can not recover that money over that time period, I think, you are doing something wrong. i.e. If you spent $4000 dollars on a Spider male last year, and bred it to five females each year, starting at year two for the male, and three of your females laid clutches of five eggs each, you would have 15 eggs. Lets say you have bad odds, and only hatch out 2 Spiders per clutch for a total of six Spiders. Lets say that you could sell the Spiders for $500 each. Thats $3000 dollars total. After two years, you are only at a loss for $1000. After fifteen years of producing 6 Spiders per year, that would be 95 Spiders, lets say at an average of $250 dollars apiece, you made a grand total of $23750 dollars, minus your $4000 dollar initial investment, you made $19750 dollars in fifteen years, with only six snakes.
I would say the investment potential is definitely there.
Sorry for the long windedness(I don't know if that is a word),