In my opinon the motley market is in it's very early stages. The most important factors are the price that the morph started at and the need for females to produce super motleys. I think the original high price of the motleys and limitted numbers that were sold have held down production and kept the price high. While more people are starting to produce motleys now the price has still remained relatively high. In the interim several people have produced super motleys, hypo motleys and albino motleys and the appearance of these motleys has helped keep the prices at a high level as the observable potential of the motley continues to expand. As more combination morphs are produced the interest in motleys and motleys combined with another morph(s) will continue to grow. This will be particularly true with combination morphs with the super motley.

On a practicle level motley prices did start to drop last year but still probably averaged around $4000-$5000 for a motley. When I was selling mine at my table at Daytona I had many people come up to me and say they couldn't wait until the motleys got down to around $2000 a peice so that they could buy pairs or more. After hearing that from so many different people my opinion is that the motleys will reach a price at about $2000 in another year or so and at this price the supply won't be able to meet the demand and the price will stabalize much like the albino boa price stabalized for many years. Most boa breeders will want to have a pair of motleys and produce supers very similar to the albino market.In addition, many people who are breeding motleys will be making motley combinations with other morphs which will sell for more and mean less normal motleys are produced.

The super motleys obviously add another whole level to the market. The appearance of these may dramatically increase the interest in the whole motley project. This will make the value of female motleys increase as they will be critical to any super breeding project.

I also think there is the possibilty of a refined market for motleys with super high contrast and great patterns that can be developed from selective breeding of specific motleys.

The final point is that the morphs are more diverse now then when the hypo started. Many people with their first hypos basically had choices of breeding with an anerythristic, albino or normal. Now people have so many more choices and much more diverse collections. This diversity means it will take a much longer time for the options with motleys to be exhausted.

Bill Kirby
KRBS HERPS

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