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.
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