You've thrown out a loaded question and disappeared. You've received some interesting and generally good advice. Before I could really tell you what is wise for you, I'd need to know a great deal more about you. For starters:



1. How old are you?

2. Do you have a job?

3. What is your education level or skill set?

4. Are you married?

5. Do you have children?

6. What debts do you owe?

7. How much have you saved for retirement?

8. How many snakes do you own? have you owned?

9. How long have you owned snakes? in general? ball pythons in particular?

10. Where do you live?



Of course, you didn't come here for a lecture about personal finance. You came here to ask what kinds of ball pythons are likely to keep their value over time and be marketable.



Of those who've answered so far, I know the least about ball pythons, but I'll give you some thoughts. My premise for answering this question will be that I'm independently wealthy and have no other need for $15k but that I don't have so much money that I can piss away more than $15k. (I wish this premise were true in real life.) I'd like to end up with a profit just to prove that I could do it. Part of my personal reality is that I've owned snakes for less than six months, so the whole thing would be a learning process.



First, I'd look for some attractive, normal females who are at or almost at breeding size. The pet store near me has had some that are about that size for about $100. I'd sink $500 to $1000 into any male morph that I could find. I'd use these snakes to learn to maintain snakes in a rack system. I'd put a couple of thousand dollars into that rack system. I'd get a license so that I could sell snakes for a profit. When they reached breeding size, I'd start breeding. I've never managed snake breeding, so I'd spend a year or so just learning how to get from male and female adult to male and female adult plus healthy hatchlings.



If I my male morph had a recessive trait, my first batches of hatchlings would look like normals. Let's say that I had ten to fifteen of them. I'd save a male or two and a female or two and sell the rest as normals for about $40 to $60 each. I could probably market them among snake enthusiasts as possible hets and get more for them, but in doing so I could end up wasting a great deal of time and money feeding them all. At this point, I've probably spent $7000 of my original sum and would receive about $300 to $400 in return.



If my male were a co-dominant morph, I'd try to find some way to sell the hatchlings for more than what normals would cost, but I wouldn't try to sell them at what might be considered "market" price. If someone has a choice of buying a pastel from someone like me or someone who's been breeding for a while, that person will prefer to deal with the established breeder. Let's say that my male were a pastel. I'd consider letting the less attractive hatchlings go for $200 to $300. At that price, I might even be able to interest non-chain pet stores in selling some for me on consignment. If I did it that way, I'd probably get $1000 to $1200 in return.



I'd keep what I had and breed again at which point I'd have spent another $500 of my money plus the $300 that I made on the sale of the first batch. (If I had the pastel male, the sale of hatchlings from the first batch might cover the costs from the next year.) In the second year, I'd assume that prices for normal-looking hatchlings would be about the same. I'd bleed another $500 of my initial funds and receive about $300 in return. (If I were dealing with a pastel male, I'd assume that my return during the second year would be only $800. I think pastels are going to flood the market.)



At this point, I'd buy a pied male. I think I could afford one with the remains of my $15k, and I think they look neat. I'd continue bleeding about $400 a year for another three or four years while I built enough good breeders to start making morphs for sale. I don't know whether I'd ever truly break even on my snakes.



Ultimately, I'd write a book. I like to write, and I think I'm a pretty good writer. I think my engineering perspective on things would allow me to write a book that would be very clear and explain husbandry in a way that would be easy to understand. I'd concentrate on statistics and other measures of the snakes that I had kept. Somewhere along the line, I'd experiment with raising a number of snakes under different conditions. I'd see how those conditions affected growth and development, and I'd include that data in the book. I'd try to find published sources of information and include that information as well. I haven't yet read the NERD book, so I don't know whether I could compete with it to be the best. I'd probably try to concentrate less on morphs and sell at a lower price.



Okay, now that we've established that I really can't help you, maybe someone who knows more will answer your real question.





Bill
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It's not how many snakes you have. It's how happy and healthy you can keep them.

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