Super High Dollar Morphs

[PitOnTheProwl]

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) .

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.

[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? 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.

[Brandon Osborne]

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? 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.

Brandon agrees with BG.

[JLC]

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.

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?

...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

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.

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

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.

It's sad, I swear it those drops are worse than buy a new car.
...

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

[TessadasExotics]

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?

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".

[JLC]

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".

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.

[angllady2]

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.

Gale

[papa wyrm]

It's nice to hear the peeps who are bullish with the BP market speak there minds.
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
K enough of the soap box lol. Love BP's and love the fact that my collection is paying for itself and then some.

[darkbloodwyvern]

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.

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...)

[kitedemon]

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.