how has the price of morphs changed over the years?

[daniel1983]

I was just wondering how the price of the base morphs have changed over the years. I was told by a breeder that he purchased an male albino in 2001 for $3000, now they go for about $2000. I was just wondering if anyone knows of some cost data for the base morphs over the past 5 years to 10 years.

[kavmon]

i don't have alot of data but albinos were around 10k i think in the early 90's. i haven't been into balls long enough but i think co-dom morphs like pastels and spiders will drop faster than recessive ones like albinos and pieds because you don't need het females to produce morphs. just my thoughts!
adam's an old dusty ball breeder, he can fill in alot more.


vaughn

[RandyRemington]

There are very few exceptions to the rule that prices tend to be lower ever year (mainly ghost which proved to make nice combos). As supply increases, unless demand spikes faster than the increase in supply, the price goes down. Still, if your animals are breeding, you should produce enough more to pay for the more expensive breeders pretty quick.

It will be interesting to see what sort of leveling off effect there is/will be at the bottom (after years and years). It looks like albino didn't really budge much last year so perhaps it's already getting to a stabilization price at a much higher amount than I expected. I guess people pay big bucks for purebred dogs and exotic birds so maybe a $1,500 albino ball python will hold up. What about pastel, is it leveling off yet? How do you factor appearance and inheritance method into the leveling off price? Certainly it's effected by how much breeders are willing to work to produce at a given price but that apparently isn't the only factor.

[daniel1983]

i think i actually read that somewhere about albinos. i was thinking the same about co-dom morphs, but I am just not in the business as much as others to make that call.

I hope someone can fill in a bit. This is just something that has sparked my interest in the past few weeks. I have been trying to find bp prices for the base morphs from 2000, but have not had any luck.

[daniel1983]

and i have read several time about breeders waiting to see what 'this years prices' will be? how does each years price get determined? Do you just stick with the price from the previous year then lower your price if none are selling?

I am trying to figure the ball python business aspect out. I

[Adam_Wysocki]

I paid $5,000 for a het albino male almost 10 years ago. I also paid $6,500 for my original lemon pastel male many moons ago. I am thrilled with how prices have held up over the last ten years and the future looks just as good. There's a lot of new money coming into this hobby each year and I am very excited about what’s ahead!

and i have read several time about breeders waiting to see what 'this years prices' will be? how does each years price get determined? Do you just stick with the price from the previous year then lower your price if none are selling?

I factor in a bunch of things when I set my prices ... I start with the same price the animals were last year ... then I wait to see how many I get of each morph ... this is a big thing for me, because I want to sell animals and I want to hold animals back ... so if I have a high demand for say female albinos and I only produce 2, then my price on them will be a little higher than market. That way, if one sells, great! I make a few bucks and maybe trade for a replacement with another breeder. On the other hand, if the higher than market price scares off customers, then I keep them for myself and that's great too.

Things like how the "big guys" are pricing their animals, new combos that people are going crazy over, ads on the web by idiots taking deposits on animals that they haven't produced yet, and the numbers of a given morph sold the previous year also play big time into what prices are going to be.

Hope this helps.

-adam

[daniel1983]

So ,availability and your own breeding interests basically set the price. I think I understand for the most part. thanks.

[Leon]

The more people that get into this hobby and breed morphs -
The faster the prices will fall -
Heres an example -

http://www.reptimart.com/cgi-bin/cla...uery=retrieval

[daniel1983]

The more people that get into this hobby and breed morphs -
The faster the prices will fall

but the more people that get into this hobby and want to breed ball pythons...the demand for ball pythons will increase.

I assume the number of bp owners is constantly increasing at this moment, but I guess eventually it will level off and the prices may drop a bit due to lack of demand. but no telling when that will happen.

[daniel1983]

I posted this question because I keep asking myself queistions like: why should I spend $1000 now for a pastel...when I can get one for $600 a two years down the road. or spend $700 for a het albino pair that will produce albinos in two years... when I can just buy an albino for $1000 in two years. I am not really trying to develop a big business(or even a small business)...I just want get some nice snakes and save myself some money. My goal is to eventually reach the point where I own around 6-10 nice ball pythons and breed them to supply money for their food and housing. I am just trying to look out for my investment so far and judge what to do in the future.