I will go along with Show Horses and Dog Shows as similar to Ball breeding, but for those who think buying a snake is a better investment than buying a house, I would beg to differ. I think we all have seen the various Co Dom morph prices drop drastically. That being said, most cool, sought after crosses involve a simple recessive AND a Co Dom or Dom animal. Look at the Pastel Pied, the Pastel Stripe, the Pastel Clown, etc. They are probably started with a $900 male Pastel. If I had to do all over again, I would have purchased a Pastel, pair of Het Pieds, and pair of Ghosts. Ghosts make the best crosses, much better than Albinos as a whole, and everyone loves the Pieds. As it is, I have a few normal females, a Male Mojave possible het Hypo, a Mojave cross female that is also possible het Hypo, Het pairs of Axanthics, Pieds, Green Ghosts, an Albino male, and two Het females, a Ghost male and a few Het and possible Het females, a Yb male, a trio of Pastels, a Het Caramel female, some dinking around projects, and the Ember Balls. All of the snakes were purchased from well known breeders, except the YB and the original Ember Ball female, which may be the savior in my collection. It all has been worth while to hatch out something new, or something that is my own line from an animal that cost me less than a baby normal female would today. The people who are going to have problems are people who do not have the money to buy a morph or two, and want to complain about how stupid the people are who have spent thousands on morphs, or the people who spend money they do not have on morphs, and expect to make millions. The thing that makes the Ball market so unpredictable is that is really is one big cycle, with no real end benefit. What I mean is, you pay $40K for a car, alot of money, but it gets you to work. You spend $250K on a house, but then you do not have to pay rent anymore, and if you are lucky, your house goes up like $5K a month like here in CA. You buy a boat, you go fishing or skiing, you buy a motorcycle, you go have fun on it...with Balls, you buy them to breed them, and hope someone else wants to breed what you hatched. There is no "benefit" like buying a car, a boat, a house, etc. You do not SHOW your snakes, you basically breed them. Right now, I would buy some of the lower priced snakes and hope the price stays steady, I think the higher the price, the faster and farther they will fall. But, buy what you like and if you can break even, or make a buck, count yourself lucky.

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