Super High Dollar Morphs

[mainbutter]

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.

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.

[mainbutter]

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

[MitsuMike]

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.

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.....

[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.

[rabernet]

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.

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.

[ace_singapore]

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.

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.

[Brandon Osborne]

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.

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.

[MitsuMike]

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

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.

[rabernet]

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.

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.

[PitOnTheProwl]

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.

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