When to buy a Banana

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Originally Posted by Pythonfriend

if you get into it sooner, your financial risks are greater, but you will get in the black numbers sooner, your hatchlings will sell for more, you make more profit, and you will get into multi-gene combos and super bananas sooner.

if you get into it later, financial risks are lower, rewards are also lower, and you will be playing catchup with all the others that got into sooner...

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I agree!!!

My advice on Banana's that is consequently not my advice at all . . .

If someone offers you a frozen banana, and you're not in the mood . . . but may want a regular banana later. . . always say yes. :banana:

Bananas and stop lights are just the opposite of one another
- Bananas: Green means, slow down. Hold on! Just wait . . .
- Stop light: Green means, yes, go! Continue

- Bananas: Yellow means, Go ahead, enjoy a nice Banana!
- Stop light: Yellow means, wait, hold on just a second, this is not a good idea

- Stop light: Red means, Stop . . .
- Bananas: Red means, . . . where did I get a red banana??

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Originally Posted by Neal

But like others have said, they will still find a balance. This is how the market usually works, or it has in the past. Don't quote me on price as I'm just using a general price to give people an idea.

Brand new morph = $50,000
The year after = $20,000
The year after that = $10,000
The following year $3-4,000
The year after that $1,000, later that year $600ish
The following year $500 but could drop to $300, maybe even cheaper eventually depending on how many people breed them and want them gone versus how many people are willing to buy.
Once stock runs out and more people want them, price goes up to $350, then 400. Then eventually it'll level out.

Pieds and Albinos have held their price the best versus how long they've been out. I've watched a hidden gene woma BP drop from $7k to under $5k in a few months. It's all on how many are out there and who wants to move what. Then when the price drops below what the price finally stabilizes at is because people are in a rush to get rid of stuff instead of holding onto it.

Say a person has 4 snakes that he paid $10,000 for the breeder, well he's asking $6,000 for each of the babies and he sees that morph sell for $5,000 well he may panic and sell his for under $5,000 to move them to make his money back immediately or try and that's how the market starts to crash. If people would hold on to their animals and not fall with the market then the price wouldn't drop nowhere near as fast as it does.

A good instance is Bamboo's right now are at what, $20,000? By mid next year they'll be half of that. Depending on if their selling babies or adults for that much. If it's babies then maybe not half that but say it'll drop to around $15,000. Especially if the males are ready to go. Your larger breeders will get that bamboo male and hook it up to several females and that increases the amount of bamboos he has and gives different morphs and that's when you start seeing a slight price drop.

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Although I agree with your basic premise, I disagree with your examples. Pieds and albinos are recessives, they are harder to make. Bananas are a codom with the added bonus of producing bucketloads of males, which means anyone with an adult female normal can make more bananas (and more males). The male maker issue means bananas are uniquely vulnerable to price drops even without panic selling. I think pastels would be a better comparison morph for male bananas, female bananas however are a different issue. Pastels are easy to make, mixed with everything, and readily available at a fairly steady, low price point. I suspect you will see the same thing with bananas in 5 years.

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Originally Posted by Badgemash

Although I agree with your basic premise, I disagree with your examples. Pieds and albinos are recessives, they are harder to make. Bananas are a codom with the added bonus of producing bucketloads of males, which means anyone with an adult female normal can make more bananas (and more males). The male maker issue means bananas are uniquely vulnerable to price drops even without panic selling. I think pastels would be a better comparison morph for male bananas, female bananas however are a different issue. Pastels are easy to make, mixed with everything, and readily available at a fairly steady, low price point. I suspect you will see the same thing with bananas in 5 years.

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I know they're recessives, but I'm saying out of all morphs that they're the ones that have held on to their value the best with how long they've been out. I was just using the Banana as a general example because the thread is based on that morph.

Even with clowns being cheaper with some sellers, Sean sells his for more. But this goes without saying that Sean produces the best clowns IMO hands down.

I'd buy one when you feel comfortable with the risk. You are not always going to hit the market at the right time.

Thanks everybody for the help. I am going to wait to I see the one I really like..

Let me ask this...

How does a banana help your own collection for its future? With the number of new projects and female holdbacks I have in my own collection, a banana just doesn't fit in. I don't have the time to produce bananas at this point, use up my females that are dedicated for new projects that will have legs for many years to come.

I think people forget.... When you invest into a ball python, you want holdback females that will expand and improve your breeding quality and odds in the future for different combos and to be there for new high end new genetics. Animals that when you feed rats, only gain value. I have hundreds of holdback females in my collection nobody in the world has, so I know as I feed them, they will only gain value.

At this point, I don't see the bananas really worth it for me to breed. It's something I've seen for many years to be honest. Males will continue to be worth less and less, and I feel females will always go hand in hand. Male deserts didn't keep value because they were viable? Females value dropping caused males to go down right along side them. I know viability vs. production isn't an accurate comparison, but the fact is, if a male banana is worth 100$ someday, is someone really going to spend 1000$ on a female? Male makers do make females occasionally, so I just don't see female value maintaining even if you have a female maker at this point.

So this is my point. What does a banana investment do to better your own collection for its future? Maybe it helps you more than me, so I'm curious to know.

I see it only being a great morph for the mass wholesale producers of the world. In which case, they are all going to focus on them as well. The fact production will continue to be exponential, I don't even think that gravy train will last as long as we would hope.

I honestly feel I've gained so much ground on breeders who have been doing this for many years because they were so focused on this project. I wonder how the overall value of their collections have taken a toll with the value of this mutation dropping.

Omg Rawbeh, those pics are hilarious!!!

sent from my incubator

I didn't get all 4 pages in, but I will say this:

Get in when the price point approaches one where you will be able to sell the snakes. I forget who wrote it up, I think Ben Renick, but he talks about strategies for breeding snakes. You could buy, breed, and sell lower priced snakes all day and make a good practice out of it. For me, with the presence I have and the experience and references and reputation I have, if I tried to sell a $1000+ snake I would have it sit in my rack till it was a $500 snake. I think this is a lot of the reason the price on banana dropped so fast. More people in the market thinking they can make a quick investment out of the gates and become rich because they see high priced snakes. They go out and buy a banana for 10k, breed it to 10 normal females, and when they have 15 bananas and can't sell them for 5k a pop they panic and try to recoup their costs - sell them at 1500 a pop and they have a hard time finding people to trust them even with that.

Buy new breeders in anticipation of the pricepoint of animal you will be comfortably able to sell by the time you breed it.

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Originally Posted by MrLang

I didn't get all 4 pages in, but I will say this:

Get in when the price point approaches one where you will be able to sell the snakes. I forget who wrote it up, I think Ben Renick, but he talks about strategies for breeding snakes. You could buy, breed, and sell lower priced snakes all day and make a good practice out of it. For me, with the presence I have and the experience and references and reputation I have, if I tried to sell a $1000+ snake I would have it sit in my rack till it was a $500 snake. I think this is a lot of the reason the price on banana dropped so fast. More people in the market thinking they can make a quick investment out of the gates and become rich because they see high priced snakes. They go out and buy a banana for 10k, breed it to 10 normal females, and when they have 15 bananas and can't sell them for 5k a pop they panic and try to recoup their costs - sell them at 1500 a pop and they have a hard time finding people to trust them even with that.

Buy new breeders in anticipation of the pricepoint of animal you will be comfortably able to sell by the time you breed it.

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This also points out something else - people are buying males and stamping them to 10-15 normal girls or however many girls he'll breed. Then producing a decent number of Banana's in their first 2 years of the investment. When this happens we overcrowd the market causing prices to drop due to a demand drop. Prices then continue to drop for fast sell, competitive pricing, etc. . . it's a vicious cycle. At today's price points, even with one clutch, I imagine that a Banana investment will still realistically make its money back in one clutch if you use the right female (Bee female perhaps? that's pretty basic but will do great things if the odds are in your favor).

Sorry - but just wanted to point out that while yes it may be because reputation is not good - I've bought from people that I've only seen one review of, and spent some fairly good money and got great snakes. People will buy at high end pricing if the snake is right as long as the breeder can show they are on the right. But again, the bigger take home is people buy a male, and mass produce the single genes with their normal girls, and then demand goes down as market quantity goes up.