Hey Andy,
here's my 2 cents on your post starting with the albino thing. I also remember when they were 800$ one year and jumped the next. The reason for that was, when they were $800 there were enough to go around that year. The following year I happen to know that alot of the bigger breeders of albino's that year sold most if not all of their albino stock over seas. That left us with hardly any for us here causing a supply and demand thing to take place. This info came from the top people in the bizz. After that we started seeing more color in the albino's thanks to the stripe line and sunglow siblings causing the market value to stay higher and maintain the price we see today.

Now for the ghost. My theory on that is simply the color aspect. I mean really, why breed a salmon/hypo to a female albino to get dh sunglows when you can bred a ghost and get triple hets that will make the same thing as the dh's will plus a new animal that knowone has ever seen. I think most people would rather buy a salmon/hypo cause of their outstanding colors and if their going to spend the kind of cash it costs to get an awesome one they're going to want people to look at it and be in awe. So, why buy a ghost (that should cost more do to the fact of their potential)for the same price that is just shades of brown when you can get a boa with pinks,reds, and so on. I use to think this way until I looked at the big picture and my collection got bigger and I think this is the point where I turned from collector to a hopeful future breeder.You can find awesome clean ghosts but you need to look for them cause they go first. The reason salmons are what they are today is because Rich took the time to develop the color and cleanliness by years of breeding trials and thats also why he can get those higher prices for his and others can't for almost the same thing. He's put the time and effort into these animals and to build his buisness name and it shows. I mean, he is the originator of the "SALMON BOA". Once people turn from collecting to breeding they realize the importance of a ghost and I honestly think the ghost market will pick up once we start seeing more breeding trials to make them cleaner and more attractive.

As for the sunglows. The 5000$ or less price tag these days gets you a basic sunglow. The price hikes you speak of are do to the genetics sunglows have these days. Now you see sunglows het stripe,snow,coral and the bubblegums,arabesques and now jungles. The price range changes as the possiblities of the animal grow but that obvious.

Hope this helps at all.

Ruben Michel

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