Where is the morph market heading?

[Markus Heinsohn]

I wanted to share my opinions on morphs in general, maybe I am not alone with my views

I started this hobby about 1 1/2 years ago, and was thrilled to see all the different morphs. I paid about $3500 for my 'collection', and was dreaming about creating great combinations and maybe even something brand new in the future.

However, since then my enthusiasm has vanished a bit. Not about BPs in general, but about this whole morph euphoria. One of the things that fascinated me the most was how special morphs were and how expensive, it was similar to the dream of owning a Ferrari or Porsche GT (yep, I'm a typical male ). But now the big breeders in the business create all sorts of crazy morphs, triple recessives, quadruple co-doms etc. They all look great, but, do they look & feel special? Not that much to me anymore, I'm afraid. Take these for example: http://forums.kingsnake.com/viewarch...81318&key=2008 ... quadrouple co-dom, Pastel Butter Kingpins. Looks nice, but I think they look similar to other morphs, for example the lesser pearl.

There are about 200 different morphs out there right now (I have a list of 176, and I guess it's a bit incomplete). Sure, the more morphs, the more potential combinations. But who cares really if I produce a pinstripe axantic lesser pied spider enchi in 6 years? Who will pay me $5000 for that snake if there are 500 other morphs out there, of which 10 look similar to mine?

A market in general is all about supply and demand. I am pretty sure that demand hasn't quite reached its peak yet, but supply is getting more and more. I predict that the market will cool by a lot in the next 5 years, and prices will come down in a landslide.

Thoughts?

[Lateralus_Love]

I'll try to keep my reply market related lol. I think you've got a point to a degree. People may not pay you $5000 for something that looks similar to other morphs. But, Lessers go for 600, Mojave's for 300, even though they look *similar*. Let's continue with this example. Butters, Lessers, and Mojaves all look very similar, differing only slightly. But their prices are different. Mojave's at average go for half the price of Lessers. And I can't say the price of a Butter because I haven't really seen too many recently. These morphs all are similar but are easily picked out as to what they are. They are recognizable to be either a Mojo, Lesser, or Butter. But they are still similar.

Spiders and Pinstripes can be compared as well. They look *similar* but with more drastic differences than the above examples. They have strongly differing prices as well. Enchi's, Woma's, Banded's all in my opinion look to be *similar* (but I don't have too sharp an eye for these) Yet they're all at different price ranges. In a couple years, things will be different. Five years ago, weren't there snakes going for $10k each that now are only a couple K's? Prices change, more morphs are produced, many have similarities. It depends on the differences and what's more likeable. Obviously Lesser's must be more likeable because they're double the price of a Mojave.

Now, in my opinion, I personally want to breed and produce morphs because I want these morphs lol. I don't care that if I get a Pastel male sometime along the road to breed with my Spider female, I could make a decent amount of pocket money out of selling Bees. I'd be happy that I can have a Bee in my collection! If I got more than one, I may think about selling one to fund my current collection, but, I may decide I want to keep it, because I made it, and because Bee's are freaking awesooome!

But anyways I wrote alot, these are just my .25cents

[Wh00h0069]

I think you are correct about the market in a sense. I think that the future of the ball python market is in the combos. I am in the process of selling off all of my normal females, and am only going to be breeding morph to morph. I have also bought into projects with double or triple combo potential. For example, I have a pastel double het ghost pied to breed to a pied possible het ghost. Another, I have a butter het ghost, and a pastel het ghost to breed to my pastel ghost (actually the pastel ghost and the pastel het ghost were locked yesterday.) I don’t think that anyone is going to get rich by breeding a pastel to a few normal females, or even a lesser to a few normal females. Eventually all of the prices will drop, but I think that the combo prices will hold out for a while longer.

[WizzySRT10]

I recently got into the herp world and did alot of research after I got my baby normal male 2 weeks after getting him he died of a RI and possible parasite. I was a couple weeks without a herp and started doing my research online of what's out there. Albinos, pieds, pastel, spider, pinstripe and etc. I was looking through breeders websites and found 8 ball pythons and found his VPI Proven Breeder Pastel male. I e-mailed Adam and told him I was interested and decided to buy him. After finding the pastel I found other morphs I was interested bumble bees, killer bees, spinner blasts and the like. So I decided to get a female spider. In a few years I will be able to breed my pastel male to my spider female and make a morph I will truely love. I find new morphs all the time be it here or other sites I know one day I might own that $5,000 animal. Right now I'm starting lil and working my way up. I think some other customers will be like me on their buying of snakes. Maybe not for breeding purposes like I have at a later time but start with a normal or one of the cheaper morphs. There will be people out there that will pay $1k, 5k, 10k and etc for that rare morph. But that expensive side of the herp world is for the selective individuals.

[Gloryhound]

The Ball Python bubble has broke and prices dropped quick. Those thinking they were going to make all the money back for the morphs they bought 2 years ago are experiencing a lot of disappointment. You constantly see people selling off collections.

The idea that was pushed by a lot of breeders of Ball Pythons as an investment was bad investment advice. (Actually most breeders have removed their pages that were giving this advice.) The market was flooded using that advice and supply caught up with demand, then other economic conditions best left in QT occured and the purchase of Ball Pythons have left a lot of peoples mind and we are now dealing with a situation where supply is well above demand.

It is hard to say if something like Ball Pythons will pick back up along with the rest of the economy as a lot of factors can weigh in here.
1. Will large amounts of breeders, mostly smaller ones, get out of the business due to it not being profitable or larger ones may decide to move on to something else that is more profitable? (either of these could have profound affects on supply.)
2. Will people see the difference between line bred animals and selective bred animals when making their purchases and be willing to pay the extra for selective bred morphs? (You get a spider and a pastel and breed them together to make a bee, is the end result worth X dollars when compared to breeder A's bee's? Are breeders going to be willing to sideline the breeding of low quality morphs?)
3. Will any future legislation be brought forward that impacts the herp lovers community and if so what is the affect?
4. Can new demand be created for the product?

A lot of other questions need to be answered as well, but most of them are impossible to answer on your own. You have to wait and see, but if you wait too long you may miss the upswing or you could end up breeding animals who have a monetary value less than the cost of producing them and not be able to sell them resulting in additional mouths to feed.

[RichardA]

You gotta be in it for the love first.....market second.

[FIREball]

If Im not mistaken the pastel butter kingpin is only 3 morphs (pastel, butter, pinstripe).

If it was 4 it would be a more white because it would be a pastel, butter, pin, and lesser).

[nixer]

while around here locally we have a few ppl like myself that have produced some, but in chicago we have alot more. ive been asked by more than one person what are my directions with projects and such. they do this for a living. i have a career, but im pretty much one of the bigger hobby breeders here. alot of those said ppl have alot of normal females compared to what i have and they keep those because their market isnt very big. some of these same ppl have flamed me for keeping all these expensive females. why because they know that im years ahead of what they would ever be able to produce personally im prepared to keep everything i produce. sure they are nervous. they know that if i want to produce what they want ill be there before they ever get there due to theyre refusal to purchase a female morph. so while most ppl here are producing just base morphs im far ahead of the game by my own actions. the female morphs i have bought over the years are what i wanted to keep so why not get a female im not out for a profit. on the other had they are prone to getting a male morph and breeding to a normal and maybe keep a female after a few years then dump the male. just this last year one of them has produced a super pastel and a bumble bee, while my female bee is breedable now. the point to this is i believe once morphs get really cheap you reach a new market for ppl. alot of ppl are not willing to spend 1k for a snake but they will buy one for a few hundred. do you think my mother would spend hundreds on a snake NO. but she might buy one for maybe 100. when you go to a petstore and see a ball for 100$ they are priced that way because ppl will pay that and not much more now if you have a pastel next to a normal whats going to happen? they will buy the pastel not the normal so hence the price will hold but normals will probally end up being dumped. ive noticed more and more breeders replacing normals with morphs they have held back trying to keep with the times some only keeping what they couldnt sell before its to breeding size.

[Garlascop]

Marcus, just want to say I'm a BIG fan of OOTP! Happy to hear that you're into snakes too!

-PG

[juddb]

Horrible economy, less disposable income = weeding out folks who are in this for money..... Its a hobby. I hope this makes sense.