Super High Dollar Morphs

Now dont get me wrong.... I completely understand how some of the higher end morph BP's have the price they do because it has taken alot of time and effort to make them. But honestly how often do you sell them for those prices? I'm talking the ones that are 10K-20K+?
I went to a local Rep. Show and I had to laugh because one of the vendors said hey I will knock $2K off this guy for you right now and sell it to you for $14K. I was like yeah sure just let me go hit up the ATM and I'll be right back:rolleyes:

It seems as though these days "Everyone" is now selling BP Morphs! And the prices really are not coming down so I have to assume people are paying these prices! Who are these people...lol

I mean honestly how often do you sell these high dollar morphs?

Well you have to consider a lot of factors when it comes to very high priced animals. Most breeders who even make the investment, have specific plans in mind and already know who their buyers would be. You don't jump in blindly and buy a $20,000 animal.

In most cases these people just a morph or genetic before anyone else, no matter the cost. But keep in mind most people only sell females if its a co dom or dominant gene and males are going to be twice the cost of a female.

They sell often, but a very limited quantity of animals are available. Let me know if you can find a male ChamPin For sale...

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Originally Posted by Monster Dodge

Now dont get me wrong.... I completely understand how some of the higher end morph BP's have the price they do because it has taken alot of time and effort to make them.

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The price tag I don't agree with and yet I do. Example for effort, time and money goes into dog breeding BUT yet dogs are a fraction of the cost of snakes.....
I can also see where people are coming from b/c the prices are set by the big breeders and the big breeders most of the time ONLY raise and sell snakes so now you have a factor of time and time = money.
Example:
(0.1 Lesser = $450) + (1.0 Pastel = $75) + ( Food for 2 years = $312) = $837
NOW 1 baby is worth $800-900 dollars (Pastel Lesser) So if you hit simple odds you have made back your investment. Soo in my eyes this is why I don't see why prices for any reptile are so high.

Then you have to factor in time....
Now for the time = money part:
(Initial Investment = $837) + {[(2 hours a week, each snake, cleaning....$7.25 x 4 = $29) + (0.5 hours a week, each snake, feeding....$7.25 x 1 = $7.25)] x (104 weeks to get to size + 26 weeks for breeding, etc = 130) = 4,712.50} = 5,549.50

That is now time plus investment plus feeding of ONLY 2 snakes and to make it pretty add some more money to housing, incubator, etc. so $6,000.00 is a round about # to see how much money really goes into it.

Just as an example. So really a double recessive animal such as a Ghost or Snow is worth about $15K to produce. Now other things take MORE time and MORE effort to produce but aren't even close to the cost but it's not really any of that, it's more what are people going to pay the price for the animal. Those morphs sell, but to who I would also like to know.

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Originally Posted by Monster Dodge

And the prices really are not coming down

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Wrong-o.

For any particular morph(including combos) since I started paying attention, it seems the advertised prices gets slashed in half about every 18 months.

Excellent example MitsuMike. And I can totally see how some of the bigtime breeders have those prices. Its there business and livelyhood. Not to mention everytime they sell a Morph they are pottentially creating a competitor as well.
But there are so many small time breeders now the BP Morph market has become almost saturated, yet the prices still are remaining the same.

At the last Rep. show I went to it basically should have been just called a Ball Python Morph show because thats all that was there. Dont get me wrong it was awesome but it was like you had to basically be rich to buy anything. The norm price on most I saw was $2 to $4K. And honestly I saw maybe 2 or 3 people out of hundreds who actually bought anything over $600.

Thats why I was wondering who actually can drop the coin for these and how these prices are not coming down?? Just my $0.02

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Originally Posted by mainbutter

Wrong-o.

For any particular morph(including combos) since I started paying attention, it seems the advertised prices gets slashed in half about every 18 months.

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Since the first show I have been to back in 2004 till present, the only morph I have seen even remotely come down in price are Pies and by 50%.... no way. Maybe 15-25% tops. Thats here in the D.C./MD/VA area.

Its economics while I cannot afford said morph or combo for 10 or 12k I have bought some for 1k and 2k. My opinion on this is simple, if I were making double or triple of what I make yearly, I would have easily bought an animal in the 6 to 8k price range. Remember this is our thang so alot of us who luckily or through hard work have the resources will buy them.

This is true about many things we as people consume or buy everyday.

I know the time=money thing, as a mechanic of 15 years.
I also know I cannot afford the animals I want, so I am going to work with the ones I have and add 1 or 2 more females to either make what I want or be able to sell/trade what I make to get the ones I want. Plus I want to see what my 2 "dinkers" will do:oops:

I am just not a patient person and dont know if I can make it waiting another year on my two girls. So I am starting a hunt for a female pastel close to the 2 yr mark here in san antonio.

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Originally Posted by Monster Dodge

Since the first show I have been to back in 2004 till present, the only morph I have seen even remotely come down in price are Pies and by 50%.... no way. Maybe 15-25% tops. Thats here in the D.C./MD/VA area.

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Idk it really all depends. IMO I think this market will be done in the next 5 years. WAYYY to many wanna be's trying to make a quick buck and make a living off of breeding snakes. That is why business has been good, even in BHBs blog he said the daytona show didn't have the big guys there but he sold alot of animals. This is because all the newbies buying are the snakes, but what happens when those newbies now become breeders and so on and so forth.
Besides the top dogs, who is really selling at the price they set? How many low ball offers do you think people have to deal with? This in it self causes the market to go down (which the newbies don't realize, in trying to make a quick buck/good deal) The market is peaking out, if it hasn't already, and just like Sir Isaac Newton said "what goes up must come down"
But that is just my opinion, to each their own. I call it how I see it. All I am seeing is ALOT of animals on the market and only so many buyers.

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Originally Posted by MitsuMike

The price tag I don't agree with and yet I do. Example for effort, time and money goes into dog breeding BUT yet dogs are a fraction of the cost of snakes.....
I can also see where people are coming from b/c the prices are set by the big breeders and the big breeders most of the time ONLY raise and sell snakes so now you have a factor of time and time = money.
Example:
(0.1 Lesser = $450) + (1.0 Pastel = $75) + ( Food for 2 years = $312) = $837
NOW 1 baby is worth $800-900 dollars (Pastel Lesser) So if you hit simple odds you have made back your investment. Soo in my eyes this is why I don't see why prices for any reptile are so high.

Then you have to factor in time....
Now for the time = money part:
(Initial Investment = $837) + {[(2 hours a week, each snake, cleaning....$7.25 x 4 = $29) + (0.5 hours a week, each snake, feeding....$7.25 x 1 = $7.25)] x (104 weeks to get to size + 26 weeks for breeding, etc = 130) = 4,712.50} = 5,549.50

That is now time plus investment plus feeding of ONLY 2 snakes and to make it pretty add some more money to housing, incubator, etc. so $6,000.00 is a round about # to see how much money really goes into it.

Just as an example. So really a double recessive animal such as a Ghost or Snow is worth about $15K to produce. Now other things take MORE time and MORE effort to produce but aren't even close to the cost but it's not really any of that, it's more what are people going to pay the price for the animal. Those morphs sell, but to who I would also like to know.

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Sadly you can not use these methods on pricing a snake or many other items. The basics always rule down to, its only worth what someone else is willing to pay.

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Originally Posted by Monster Dodge

Since the first show I have been to back in 2004 till present, the only morph I have seen even remotely come down in price are Pies and by 50%.... no way. Maybe 15-25% tops. Thats here in the D.C./MD/VA area.

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Bumblebees 2008 were going for $1000-1500.

I saw a female just a few days ago going for $400.

Super pastels have similarly dropped.. and lemon blasts??? Heck I saw them listed for over $1000 earler THIS YEAR, and now it seems that the going price is a steady $650 across the board.

How much were pieds going for in 2004? I remember they were going for well 1-2k not all that long ago, but hit up the latest clutches for sale on the classifieds nowadays and you'll find a pretty big price drop.

Lessers, pinstripes, and spiders are all great stories of incredible price drops. 2007-2008 lessers were an extremely hot ticket. Females were running over $700 pretty consistently if I remember correctly. Now everyone and their brother has one, and plenty are selling for $200-250.

I'd love to hit up BHB or someone else who deals with large numbers of sales to do actual statistics on price drops of particular morphs, but of course that kind of information is pretty well guarded.

Price Drops in Piebalds: 2004 vs 2010

2004:
hets: http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...ad.php?t=60039
http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...ad.php?t=57670
visual homozygous: http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...ad.php?t=62261

2010
http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...d.php?t=216839

The 2004 piebald female was priced at SEVEN times more than the female in the advertisement I provided. That's a price drop of ~86% over the course of 6 years. It's not quite up to my estimate of "dropping in price by half about every 18 months", but if I'd said "every 24 months", I would have been pretty spot on.

And what are het piebalds going for these days? Certainly not $1550 for a 103 gram female

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Originally Posted by mainbutter

Bumblebees 2008 were going for $1000-1500.

I saw a female just a few days ago going for $400.

Super pastels have similarly dropped.. and lemon blasts??? Heck I saw them listed for over $1000 earler THIS YEAR, and now it seems that the going price is a steady $650 across the board.

How much were pieds going for in 2004? I remember they were going for well 1-2k not all that long ago, but hit up the latest clutches for sale on the classifieds nowadays and you'll find a pretty big price drop.

Lessers, pinstripes, and spiders are all great stories of incredible price drops. 2007-2008 lessers were an extremely hot ticket. Females were running over $700 pretty consistently if I remember correctly. Now everyone and their brother has one, and plenty are selling for $200-250.

I'd love to hit up BHB or someone else who deals with large numbers of sales to do actual statistics on price drops of particular morphs, but of course that kind of information is pretty well guarded.

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It's sad, I swear it those drops are worse than buy a new car.
I would never let my Bee go for $400 or my Lesser go for $250. I see animals at that price and it puts a bad taste in my mouth and then it makes my eyes hurt seeing how damn UGLY those snakes are. A bee who is browned out at 200 grams? Quality is going down hill as well. Atleast the people with good looking animals won't take too much of a hit.....:please:

What every one fails to realize, or just doesn't know, is that those top breeders that end up with that awesome looking new morph like the Toffee Ball are paying top dollar amounts for those animals. We are talking $100,000+ for a said new morph. And that's not even knowing if its a passable trait. Some breeders have to co-own the snake to be able to afford the cost of the animal. Do you think that Brian paid 10k for the first Pinstripe? I can assure you it was way more than that. What about the Lavender Albino, Platy Daddy or even the Spider?

Also once a-pon a time, only about 10 years ago, Pieds were going for around 50k.

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Originally Posted by MitsuMike

Idk it really all depends. IMO I think this market will be done in the next 5 years. WAYYY to many wanna be's trying to make a quick buck and make a living off of breeding snakes. That is why business has been good, even in BHBs blog he said the daytona show didn't have the big guys there but he sold alot of animals. This is because all the newbies buying are the snakes, but what happens when those newbies now become breeders and so on and so forth.
Besides the top dogs, who is really selling at the price they set? How many low ball offers do you think people have to deal with? This in it self causes the market to go down (which the newbies don't realize, in trying to make a quick buck/good deal) The market is peaking out, if it hasn't already, and just like Sir Isaac Newton said "what goes up must come down"
But that is just my opinion, to each their own. I call it how I see it. All I am seeing is ALOT of animals on the market and only so many buyers.

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The sky is falling, the sky is falling!!!!!

What you just said has been said every single year. The ball python market will be strong for many many many years to come. We won't even SEE all the potential combos that can be made in our lifetime.

There are a lot more sales going on besides at shows, probably more sales behind the scenes than at shows.

Unfortunately - it's the people who want to make a quick buck and panic when their animal doesn't sell in the first six hours they put it up for sale that start slashing prices. Luckily they get out pretty quickly too.

My animals don't sell when I put them up? No biggie - they just grow bigger and get a bigger price tag as they mature. Somewhere someone's looking for a 2 year old pastel female because they don't want to take the 2 years to grow it up themselves that will pay me $1 a gram for my time and efforts for that adult female morph. :)

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Originally Posted by rabernet

The sky is falling, the sky is falling!!!!!

What you just said has been said every single year. The ball python market will be strong for many many many years to come. We won't even SEE all the potential combos that can be made in our lifetime.

There are a lot more sales going on besides at shows, probably more sales behind the scenes than at shows.

Unfortunately - it's the people who want to make a quick buck and panic when their animal doesn't sell in the first six hours they put it up for sale that start slashing prices. Luckily they get out pretty quickly too.

My animals don't sell when I put them up? No biggie - they just grow bigger and get a bigger price tag as they mature. Somewhere someone's looking for a 2 year old pastel female because they don't want to take the 2 years to grow it up themselves that will pay me $1 a gram for my time and efforts for that adult female morph. :)

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Well said, and if you look it as a long time investment and even just as a passion for an animal and hobby that we love, which I am assuming most of us here are, it's going to pay off eventually. For those that just wanna make quick bucks, you should buy stocks.

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Originally Posted by Monster Dodge

Since the first show I have been to back in 2004 till present, the only morph I have seen even remotely come down in price are Pies and by 50%.... no way. Maybe 15-25% tops. Thats here in the D.C./MD/VA area.

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Pieds are down 80-85% from 2004 prices. Spiders were several thousand and are now $100-175. Pastels were still in the $1000 range and are now $50-150. The list goes on. Everything is about 5-20% of what it was in 04. ;)

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Originally Posted by rabernet

The sky is falling, the sky is falling!!!!!

What you just said has been said every single year. The ball python market will be strong for many many many years to come. We won't even SEE all the potential combos that can be made in our lifetime

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Though I doubt its been said every single year, you can believe it or not. To think that just because you won't see all the combos in your lifetime doesn't mean the market will stay as strong for that length of time. Like i said it's just my 2 cents, agree with it or not.
No big breeder is going to come on here and say the market is falling, then your snake stock is worthless. Though it speaks volumes that the top dogs aren't making it out to the biggest shows.

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Originally Posted by MitsuMike

Though I doubt its been said every single year, you can believe it or not. To think that just because you won't see all the combos in your lifetime doesn't mean the market will stay as strong for that length of time. Like i said it's just my 2 cents, agree with it or not.
No big breeder is going to come on here and say the market is falling, then your snake stock is worthless. Though it speaks volumes that the top dogs aren't making it out to the biggest shows.

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You're right - it does - Daytona is dead. That's because of Florida and their laws. The big breeders are still hitting most of the NARBC shows.

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Originally Posted by rabernet

Somewhere someone's looking for a 2 year old pastel female because they don't want to take the 2 years to grow it up themselves that will pay me $1 a gram for my time and efforts for that adult female morph. :)

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YOUR KILLING ME!!!!!! I do want a 1 to 2 yr pastel female:O:D

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Originally Posted by MitsuMike

WAYYY to many wanna be's trying to make a quick buck and make a living off of breeding snakes.
This is because all the newbies buying are the snakes, but what happens when those newbies now become breeders and so on and so forth.
How many low ball offers do you think people have to deal with? This in it self causes the market to go down (which the newbies don't realize, in trying to make a quick buck/good deal) .

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I agree with most though, Mike, at one time you were a newbie TOO. Right?
(I did cut MitsuMike's quote to shorten it) Don't get me wrong, as I am a newbie too, but I am wanting to try and make what I want and like. I am not doing it to make money but I would prolly not give them away for free either.;)

Its like anything else in life. People see someone making money and now they want to try it.
Watch some of the car and motorcycle shows on tv, there are people out there that think I should be able to build a bike in 30 to 60 minutes because thats what they see on tv.
Look at the original Harley riders, and most of who rides them now. Difference is the 3 piece suit guys that are weekend riders now dont know how to fix them when they are stuck on the side of the road.
Look at hot-rods and rat-rods, they were guys that couldnt afford new speed parts so they made due.
There will always be people that run costs up and down.

Does Big Gunns want to spend all the time and effort it will take to clear this up for all the "experts" on the Ball Python market? :rolleye2::rolleye2:To be honest, BG was gonna start a thread on this and tell all his fans the truth. Yeah...BG said it...the TRUTH about the Reptile industry. Let BG get his strength up and he'll do it for yah. BG will tell all you "experts" what you really wanna know. There may be others that could tell you what BG knows, but we all know they're not gonna do it.

To answer the OP's question though. YES...people are still spending a lot on Ball Python Morphs. There may not be as many of them nowadays(high priced morphs), but people( a lot of people) are doing it EVERY SINGLE DAY. Just because you didn't happen to be standing there when someone did it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

ps. BG can't guarantee when he gonna spend hours of his time with this lengthy post, but he promises he'll do it at some time before 2012.:D

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Originally Posted by Big Gunns

Does Big Gunns want to spend all the time and effort it will take to clear this up for all the "experts" on the Ball Python market? :rolleye2::rolleye2:To be honest, BG was gonna start a thread on this and tell all his fans the truth. Yeah...BG said it...the TRUTH about the Reptile industry. Let BG get his strength up and he'll do it for yah. BG will tell all you "experts" what you really wanna know. There may be others that could tell you what BG knows, but we all know they're not gonna do it.

To answer the OP's question though. YES...people are still spending a lot on Ball Python Morphs. There may not be as many of them nowadays(high priced morphs), but people( a lot of people) are doing it EVERY SINGLE DAY. Just because you didn't happen to be standing there when someone did it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

ps. BG can't guarantee when he gonna spend hours of his time with this lengthy post, but he promises he'll do it at some time before 2012.:D

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Brandon agrees with BG.

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Originally Posted by MitsuMike

The price tag I don't agree with and yet I do. .... it's more what are people going to pay the price for the animal. Those morphs sell, but to who I would also like to know.

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What's not to agree with? If I have a snake that I KNOW someone is willing to spend $15,000 for, then why shouldn't I price it at that? You mean to tell me that if you knew your animal would fetch that kind of money, you'd come here and put it on the market for $1500 just because it's more "fair" or something?

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Originally Posted by Monster Dodge

...The norm price on most I saw was $2 to $4K. And honestly I saw maybe 2 or 3 people out of hundreds who actually bought anything over $600.

Thats why I was wondering who actually can drop the coin for these and how these prices are not coming down?? Just my $0.02

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I will agree that it's uncommon to make sales of that size at small shows. However, at the big shows, I've SEEN guys walking around with huge wads of money to buy snakes with....and seen other guys walking around with deli cups and snake bags full of those $10,000+ animals.

And as Neil already said...there's a LOT that goes on in the market beyond the handful of sales you might witness at a local show.

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Originally Posted by MitsuMike

Idk it really all depends. IMO I think this market will be done in the next 5 years....

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I've been watching all of this VERY closely for the last seven years....and I can guarantee you folks HAVE been saying that every single year, whether you believe Robin or not. I've no doubt that you believe what you say....but unless the entire economical, political and social structures of our country fail (along with Canada, Western Europe, and much of Asia)....the ball python market will still be going strong in five years and ten years and beyond.

Will it change in that time? Certainly. It's changed a lot in the seven years that I've been watching it. But anyone with the brains and guts to adapt to those changes will do just fine.

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Originally Posted by MitsuMike

It's sad, I swear it those drops are worse than buy a new car.
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Sooo....the high prices are bad....but you don't like to see the prices drop? :confuzd:

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Originally Posted by JLC

What's not to agree with? If I have a snake that I KNOW someone is willing to spend $15,000 for, then why shouldn't I price it at that? You mean to tell me that if you knew your animal would fetch that kind of money, you'd come here and put it on the market for $1500 just because it's more "fair" or something?

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Now this is exactly what happened back in the first half of the 2000's. Maybe not every one knows about the MorphKing. He did exactly that though. Made tons of cash by pumping out morphs and selling them at a fraction of what every one else was selling em for. I remember when he started his wheeling and dealing. He almost single-handedly (did depending on whom you talk too) destroyed the Ball Python market. If I am not mistaken when Pieds were still selling for 50k he started selling them for like 10k. I don't remember his pricing exactly but it was some thing stupid like that. He was selling more morphs than he could hatch out.
People will do it.

Also any one who breeds Ball Pythons and sells any of the offspring is doing it for the money. Maybe not to earn a living from it but to at least pay for their "habit".

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Originally Posted by TessadasExotics

Now this is exactly what happened back in the first half of the 2000's. Maybe not every one knows about the MorphKing. He did exactly that though. Made tons of cash by pumping out morphs and selling them at a fraction of what every one else was selling em for. I remember when he started his wheeling and dealing. He almost single-handedly (did depending on whom you talk too) destroyed the Ball Python market. If I am not mistaken when Pieds were still selling for 50k he started selling them for like 10k. I don't remember his pricing exactly but it was some thing stupid like that. He was selling more morphs than he could hatch out.
People will do it.

Also any one who breeds Ball Pythons and sells any of the offspring is doing it for the money. Maybe not to earn a living from it but to at least pay for their "habit".

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I'd say that's a whole different situation. That was his marketing scheme because he believed he'd get more return on his investment doing it that way. Right or wrong...agree or disagree...that was his motive. As opposed to the person who says that such high prices are "unfair" or "wrong" simply because they can't afford it.

I agree 100% with your last statement. Anyone who breeds to sell babies, or buys to flip for more money is HOPING to make that sell and get that income. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, so long as one's priorities are in line and the animals' welfare comes first.

You know, this reminds me a lot of what happened to cockatiels some years back. I bred for 20 years until my health made me quit.

When I first started breeding, people were standing in line for hand-fed babies as pets, I had a waiting list two years long and I could sell at pretty much any price I felt like and people would pay it. Heck, I remember selling an albino baby for $200 and there were plenty that sold them higher.

After a few short years, you had a bunch of yahoo's who decided breeding cockatiels was the new get-rich-quick thing and soon everybody and their grandma were breeding cockatiels and they flooded the market with their cheap, inferior animals. People started griping about paying good money for a quality bird when someone down the street had it for $50 cheaper. Guess what ? If you didn't want to pay my prices, I told you to go elsewhere. I KNEW those super cheap birds were poorly bred, poorly raised, prone to health issues and who knows what else. Sure I lost a lot of money, I even had to scale back on my breeders because I was finding it difficult to house the babies that no longer sold.

In no time at all, the over-saturated market collapsed, as the schmucks looking to make a quick buck discovered the fortunes they imagined were just that, imagination. So they sold out of everything. Birds that once sold for $200+ were going for $25 and less.

By and by an interesting thing happened. See, all those people who still wanted pet cockatiels suddenly found themselves with no birds to buy. Even pet shops had a hard time finding suppliers. Then suddenly, those ridiculously high prices you wanted people to pay when everybody in your neighborhood had babies for sale, aren't so high when you are the only breeder in the tri-county area who still had them.

So yeah, the ball python market will have it's ups and downs, that goes without saying. But those who are breeding for quality and not quantity who weather the storm will find plenty of people willing to pay for that quality in due time. :2cent:

Gale

It's nice to hear the peeps who are bullish with the BP market speak there minds. :gj:
One thing that strikes me as amazing is hearing people talk about the BP market as if its any different than any other wholesale/retail market in the world.
Supply and Demand. As long as there's a demand, there's a market.
Those high dollar snakes? most of the animals over 10 or 20 grand? The nay sayers also talk about those animals like there are two of them in every herpers rack lol. lets take say, the tri stripe gene. 17k for a male. guess what. there are like 15 tristripes in the world!!!! compare that to the dog market:rolleye2::rage:
K enough of the soap box lol. Love BP's and love the fact that my collection is paying for itself and then some.

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Originally Posted by angllady2

So yeah, the ball python market will have it's ups and downs, that goes without saying. But those who are breeding for quality and not quantity who weather the storm will find plenty of people willing to pay for that quality in due time.

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Agreed! And think about it, Pastels used to cost 1K when i first started getting interested in BP's. Three years ago I bought my female pastel for a bery reasonable price, maybe 300 and shipping? 1k was too high a price for me to pay at the time, and even now, I can't justify paying quite that much for a snake. A little less than that for the pied female I've been DREAMING of? TOTALLY worth it! But if I see a NEW morph I love? I can wait... Snakes can live a long time if they are kept healthy! I'm ok waiting for a quality breeder to have what I want in a price I can afford.

...and don't forget... there are new combos and morphs coming out every year. Maybe prices will eventually settle, but I'm pretty sure once one morph becomes mainstream, another new thing will take it's place as the most expensive morph.

The costs as I can vaguely estimate:

about 4 years ago pastels were 600+
about three they were 400 or less in some cases....

Het pieds 4 years ago $900
PIEDS this year... $900? I mean, not the majority, but you can find some that are around this price! Het females are selling for 300 or so

(feel free to correct these prices, but all i can say is, these morphs USED to be out of my price range only 2-3 years ago...)

It seems to me ghat the market is just that a market. It will have highs and lows like all markets do. The new 'hot' morphs will become old and will drop in price as they are produced by increasing numbers of breeders. New ones will emerge at high prices. I personally hope that the normal ball pricing climbs I know that to be unlikely but ... The cheap price tag on normals means more normals will need to rescued. I wish that the bottom price for any ball was in the 200 range. The people that have done the research and are prepaired will save up for it. The impulse buyers might be stopped by the price tag.

I paid around $4k for my pair of het pieds back in 2003. I don't ever remember pieds being $50K each. Maybe $50K for a pair. Heck I remember the first year they were made available.lol....back when all we had proven were albinos and maybe pastels. VPI was still working on proving Clowns. My how times have changed.

And wow.....$17K for a tri-stripe and there are that many of them?! We have the only 3 Pewter Pieds in the world that I know of......what are they worth?:P

It is simple supply and demand. High dollar morphs are very rare, and are an investment.

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Originally Posted by JLC

What's not to agree with? If I have a snake that I KNOW someone is willing to spend $15,000 for, then why shouldn't I price it at that? You mean to tell me that if you knew your animal would fetch that kind of money, you'd come here and put it on the market for $1500 just because it's more "fair" or something?

Sooo....the high prices are bad....but you don't like to see the prices drop? :confuzd:

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To your first statement. Lambos, Ferrari's, ZR1s go for ridiculous pricing. But people still buy them. My point was, seemingly people don't get it, was the animal really WORTH that much. I proved that it was in fact with time and investment BUT to counter the point many other hobbies put more time and effort into things and charge much much less.
Now like I already said (I repeat myself alot) it all comes down to supply and demand not "fair".

To your second statement, you misunderstand and seem confused. So I will help you out. Saying something is "sad" doesn't mean agreeing or disagreeing. It is what it is, sad. And I say this because people who spend over 5K on an animal and in 4 years 100+ other people have the animals and it was worth not even half of what you paid for it.

And thank you Angllady for proving my point. This market will crash, for better or worse, and the example you gave is great. Now if the market will bounce back again, no one really knows (I hope it does, I like the reptile industry much to see if go). But I do see the BP market falling in suit with the bird example you gave.

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Originally Posted by Brandon Osborne

I paid around $4k for my pair of het pieds back in 2003. I don't ever remember pieds being $50K each. Maybe $50K for a pair. Heck I remember the first year they were made available.lol....back when all we had proven were albinos and maybe pastels. VPI was still working on proving Clowns. My how times have changed.

And wow.....$17K for a tri-stripe and there are that many of them?! We have the only 3 Pewter Pieds in the world that I know of......what are they worth?:P

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It's just a guess lol, that probably includes hets. There's only one person in the country with em a of now though. You get the point...

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Originally Posted by TessadasExotics

What every one fails to realize, or just doesn't know, is that those top breeders that end up with that awesome looking new morph like the Toffee Ball are paying top dollar amounts for those animals. We are talking $100,000+ for a said new morph. And that's not even knowing if its a passable trait. Some breeders have to co-own the snake to be able to afford the cost of the animal. Do you think that Brian paid 10k for the first Pinstripe? I can assure you it was way more than that. What about the Lavender Albino, Platy Daddy or even the Spider?

Also once a-pon a time, only about 10 years ago, Pieds were going for around 50k.

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Back in 2004 when the Spiders just really started hitting the market I traded a female Pied 70% white and 7 Normal sub adult females for a male Spider. Look at spiders now....$200 for a nice male w/ no head wobble.

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Originally Posted by ace_singapore

Well said, and if you look it as a long time investment and even just as a passion for an animal and hobby that we love, which I am assuming most of us here are, it's going to pay off eventually. For those that just wanna make quick bucks, you should buy stocks.

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:bow::bow::bow::bow::D

I think everyone said it already. People DO buy snakes at those prices--but it's mostly big breeders buying from big breeders. And they don't typically do it on a lark at a show.

And I think there's more than adequate documentation of the price drops in this thread. Prices have dropped astronomically even just since I started watching in the last 2-3 years. Some of that is the recession--don't forget the recession! Ball pythons aren't exactly necessities!--and some of that is the ENORMOUS over-production of popular morphs like pieds and bumblebees and pewters and lucys. How many piebalds total were there in the ENTIRE WORLD in 1997 when Pete Kahl proved them out? 20? 40? How many do you think there are now? 500? 1000? 2000? It's not amazing that people like MorphKings undercut the price--it's kind of amazing that pieds are still hanging tough at $750-$1300.

And what does THAT tell you? That SHOULD tell you that there are dozens, if not hundreds of people out there who are willing to pay $1k for a ball python. In the middle of a recession. And I bet you there's hundreds if not thousands who are sitting out there sighing and say, "man, I wish I could afford a pied. Well, not this year, in this economy, and not at those prices. Maybe when they hit $400-$500..." So pieds will sit at $400-500 for a long, long time...

Because that's what "supply and demand" means: if somebody is out there who will pay it, then that's what is sells for. There are only so many people out there who thought it was worth paying $2k to add pieds to their collection, but meanwhile there are dozens of breeders making pieds. So the price dropped. But it'll never really drop to corn snake levels... because ball pythons only hatch 5-8 eggs a year, and sometimes not every year. And there are lots of people out there waiting for that price drop, who will stabilize the price at the next level for a while.

But expensive snakes keep popping up! Why's that? Because people are making new combos. 3-gene snakes just became possible for small breeders like me... but meanwhile the big guys are making 5-genes snakes. And NERD doesn't even KNOW for sure what he has...

And every time I bring my pieds out, somebody in the back gets a twinkle in their eye. That twinkle is somebody mentally rearranging their life a little bit, so that one day they too can have a snake. Maybe even a crazy snake like THAT... And one day soon they'll buy a het pied from me and raise it up (increasing DEMAND)... and then one day after that they'll buy a pied to pair it with (increasing demand FURTHER)... and then one day they'll be helping to lower the price by breeding their own pieds (increasing SUPPLY).

So the market will bottom out on pieds eventually. But it'll keep growing OVERALL as long as we keep inspiring new people to come into the hobby. Because supply and demand are BOTH INCREASING. Sometimes supply outpaces demand, but neither one is decreasing. New people aren't the problem--new people are the reason the ball python market EXISTS.

Wanna know what I dont understand? How lets say NERD comes out with a morph called xyz and decided to sell some xyz offspring. They'll go and list the males for lets say $20,000 and the females for $15,000.. Yet when you get to the more common seen morphs suchs as butters, and pieds, the females are more expensive.

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Originally Posted by that_dc5

Wanna know what I dont understand? How lets say NERD comes out with a morph called xyz and decided to sell some xyz offspring. They'll go and list the males for lets say $20,000 and the females for $15,000.. Yet when you get to the more common seen morphs suchs as butters, and pieds, the females are more expensive.

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Because when a morph is new, having that one male allows you to make lots of xyz gene-carrying females by crossing with your current females. You'll need those girls to even get the project started, and that one male gets you there quick.

When a morph is established, well, now you want to actually make some supers and some combos. And the total number you can make is limited entirely by the total number of xyz FEMALES you have.

And females take longer to grow up, and can only produce one clutch per season. (Unlike the stud you started with, who might have sired 3-10 clutches.)

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Originally Posted by that_dc5

Wanna know what I dont understand? How lets say NERD comes out with a morph called xyz and decided to sell some xyz offspring. They'll go and list the males for lets say $20,000 and the females for $15,000.. Yet when you get to the more common seen morphs suchs as butters, and pieds, the females are more expensive.

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Oh AND, those butter and pied and enchi females (good grief! have you seen the price diff on enchi females lately!??) may sell for more as hatchlings... but just wait until they are 2 or 3 years old! A fat 2007 pied female may not have lost value in the last three years... and a 2008 butter girl may actually have GAINED value.

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Originally Posted by MitsuMike

To your first statement. Lambos, Ferrari's, ZR1s go for ridiculous pricing. But people still buy them. My point was, seemingly people don't get it, was the animal really WORTH that much. I proved that it was in fact with time and investment BUT to counter the point many other hobbies put more time and effort into things and charge much much less.
Now like I already said (I repeat myself alot) it all comes down to supply and demand not "fair".

To your second statement, you misunderstand and seem confused. So I will help you out. Saying something is "sad" doesn't mean agreeing or disagreeing. It is what it is, sad. And I say this because people who spend over 5K on an animal and in 4 years 100+ other people have the animals and it was worth not even half of what you paid for it.

And thank you Angllady for proving my point. This market will crash, for better or worse, and the example you gave is great. Now if the market will bounce back again, no one really knows (I hope it does, I like the reptile industry much to see if go). But I do see the BP market falling in suit with the bird example you gave.

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What all you knuckleheads are forgetting is that you breed these animals. Sure if you buy a snake and let it sit in your rack it's going to lose value. If you do this, a Ball Python Morph is a lousy investment. However, if you breed your animals, you should be able to produce enough to make your "investment" pay off. The smarter(sometimes dumb luck) your choices when purchasing, the better chance you have to make money.:gj:

The funny thing is...the more money you invest, the better your chances of making money. Look at some of the "Joe Smoos" that invested a lot of money, and are now at the top of the game in a few short years paying off their house and taking vacations.:D

The ball python industry is really different than any other animal market. We are dealing with tons of morphs, that is constantly evolving and changing. With change comes interest and that will continue to be the case. With ball pythons we not only have change, but we also have quality to base our own motives to buy and sell. I personally think that ball pythons are really just starting, and far from collapsing in 5 years. Anyone who has taken a class on economics and business will understand how the market changes.

Also, take in consideration the large drop in snake prices having a lot to do with the straight fact we are in a serious economic depression? When you guys start throwing numbers around and percentages, please take the cost of a dollar and how it has changed in 5 years. You'll surprise yourself with those statistics. The funny thing is people are still spending out the ass on ball pythons during a depression rather than essentials in life because of the straight obsession. That won't change... as the market changes, so will the industry. Obviously people who want to try and do this for a living are going to have to stay a cut above the market, and like BG said, you gotta spend money to make money.

I've had snakes since I was a kid because I loved them, just like every other large snake breeder in the world. When I began collecting I didn't think about profit as much as the pure enjoyment of producing my very own morphs that I thought were my favorite. Does that consider me a wannabe because I don't own a warehouse of snakes?? The growth of hobbyist is the most important thing and is the backbone for this industry ESPECIALLY for the large breeders. Even hobbyist want the next cool thing. I make a fine living not breeding snakes, but I'll tell you what I'll still be a huge fan for a lot longer than 5 years, lord willing. Just my 2 cents.

I think at this point it's all been said. It's basic supply and demand, but to add yet another illustrative point to this thread, consider this as a high level overview:

Ball Python Breeders both small and big = 100%. The big breeding houses likely comprise about 20% and small hobbyist breeders likely comprise 80%. This is not verified - I'm just using it for illustration.

So now the 80% of smaller breeders/hobbyists have, say, an average budget of 1-5k. They all bought affordable dominant or co-dom morphs they could afford when they were on the market. In this example, let's use the last 2-3 years and what used to be expensive morphs - spiders, pastels, supers, bees, and pinstripes (lessers probably as well) - in the recessive gene market, albino and ghost.

So now we have 80% of the breeding population grabbing up all of the above named animals. This year, the market is flooded with super pastels, bees and spider crosses galore, lemonblasts, lessers, BEL's etc. Of course when the majority of the market is producing the same or similar animals, the prices drop and then the next group of newbee breeders come in and snatch up the new affordable morphs.

Meanwhile, while prices have dropped for the group of 2008 breeder stock, a lot of them can now afford to trade up or buy a new triple or quad gene animal to insert into their mix. They also have mature animals to breed next season while all the newbees snatching up the 2010 stock will have 2 years to really start producing (females anyway.)

Up at the top of the chain, we have the 20% of big breeders producing high cost animals for each other and mid-grade breeding programs to step up and create some new morphs. For example, let's say Brian at BHB produces a new chocolate morph that sells for 10k. The 2008 breeder may have 6-10k in revenue from the sales he produced this year from his 2008 stock and can now look at investing in the chocolate that will increase the average dollar sale of next year's clutch by, say, 25 - 50%.

By that time, the 2010 class of breeders will be coming up with their offspring and will be able to afford a new animal from the 2008 class and so on...

It's all a business life cycle. Some of the little guys flame out and bigger houses absorb their collection. The thing I don't see too often is mergers of breeding houses. Look for that in the future. I can see a day where it will make sense for breeders to merge based on projects. While we love it as a hobby, it is a big business for a lot of people as well. So all that being said, you can expect an annual tier of animals on the low end of the morph scale to drop in price. Next year, look for pied's to continue to drop, BEL's and Ivory's will drop, double co-dom mutations will likely be down, and (simply because they've become common) albino's will continue to drop.

Where I see stability in the next year or two is in the fire crosses (not a ton out there) Enchi crosses as well, Desert (for the next 3 years anyway - the co-dom variety may drop within two years by 40% or more depending on what's out there.) Clowns, sugars, etc. The good news about the drops is that the 2008 class can trim their losses on the breeding stock they bought high by buying 2010 stock of double co-dom's and breeding back to the 2008 adults. That's the great part of our hobby/business - you can always stay current by keeping a healthy stable of adult females, so while the new breeders may see it as saturated and bleak, it's not. It's just a cycle and it WILL continue with or without you :)