Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have seen albino retics going for $700 on Kingsnake Classifieds and I have a friend that will be selling 06 babies this year at Daytona for $600, I wonder how long it will be before we see them priced the same as albino burms? Big Jim

I don't think they will ever drop below $500, but who knows.

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0.1 Normal Burm ( Stewie )
1.1 Albino Granite Burm ( Dollar and Cents )
1.0 Super Tiger 100% Het Albino ( Blue )
0.1 Dark Lavender Albino Retic ( Puzzle )
0.2 Kids ( Kaylee and Angie )
0.1 Wife ( Danielle )

That REALLY Sucks! Itwould be nice to see such Awesome Animals retain their VALUE, Under-Cutting the "Market" price, in my opinion, is not good for the Market. Your Buddy paid "market value" for his parents, didnt he? Then Why Drive the price Down? He's not the only one LOOSING Money!! Craig

Because with SO MANY of the albino being produced eventually the demand will be less than the supply in a certain price range. It has to come down in order for the supply to meet the demand. I couldn't afford a super-tiger when they were $2500, but I did pick one up last year for about 1/6th that price. Can you imagine supers still at $2500?

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Derek Roberts
Sonoran Reptile Breeders
sonoranreptile@cox.net
"I remember the first war, the way the sky burned
The faces of angels destroyed
I saw a third of Heaven's legion banished
And the creation of hell
I stood with my brothers and watched lucifer fall
But now, my brothers aren't my brothers" -- Zao

People must realize these are not Ball Pythons, with the amount of retics being bred, the prices will have to go down, albino burms dropped for the same reason, highly fecund snakes do not hold their value long. New morphs will replace the older and prices will invariably drop, it's easy for any person to say don't lower your prices, yeah and what happens when you invested a good amount of money in retics and have 50-100 neonates to care for and no one wants to buy at higher prices because the market is literally saturated with surplus snakes. Everyone hold out? It is not going to happen, the prices are falling steady and to be honest one will still make money even at lower prices because of the higher yield in egg production these snakes can put out, if you purchased your retics to merely make money and get "rich" you should have tried tbills or the stock market instead, both markets very volatile. They will in my opinion drop to those prices within 5 years time and then hold steady just like burms
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Frank Roberts
R&R Herpetological Frank Roberts & John Rodriguez
Roberts'Realm of Reptile Research

Honestly that is what I am waiting for. I remember a year or so ago the albino retics where 1500.00. I like them but not that much. I have thought of buying two at that price and breeding and then selling them at that time for 1000.00. For reason number one to make sure all of them sold and second I think some people over price their animals based on many things. I know the breeders are totally against doing that and you would be hated and bad talked for undercutting but hey its competition if you want the big name you have to pay but if you just want a normal one then you can get a break. I am glad to see the price is going down. I may feel this way because I am not a breeder, I just like to have them but breeders have to look at if it is a fair price and not to mention the biggest reason for the drop. If everyone buys and breeds them then there is an overflow of them and not enough buyers at that price.
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0.2 Rotts
1.0 Super Tiger
0.1 Green Burm
0.1 Ball Python
0.1 Red Tail
0.1 Blood Python
1.0 Green Ananconda
1.0 Emerald Tree Boa

im happy about the price drop im not a breeder im just a hobbyist and retics are one of my all time favorite snakes in the world but like the majority of the people who come here i cant afford to spend $1000 on anything i just dont make that kind of money but i do enjoy these snakes and would like to have a few of the retic morphs in my collection breeding rabbits for food is alot easier on me than coming up with $1000
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kevin
36 pythons and boas and 4 lizards

While I do think the prices on them will drop some, I don't believe they will drop anywhere near the price of albino burmese pythons anytime soon. If you have been watching the prices on super tigers and tiger retics the last few years they both dropped fairly quickly and pretty much stopped. Back in 02 and 03 the prices of Super tigers and tigers wasn't much different than what they are now. I guess a lot depends on how many people actually produce them, but if albinos get as cheap as super tigers anytime soon, I would be very surprised.

it is the old story about supply & demand...with a snake that lays 30+ eggs & the number of people that are breading them now...I really believe the price will drop...I have seen it with alot of the herps out there...not just snakes. When Bearded Dragons first hit the trade, you couldn't touch them for under $300...I have seen them as low as $20. Due to the retics size, they are not for everyone...lets just hope they do not get to the point that people start dumping them in the Everglades.
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norcalsnakemaster@comcast.net

I think they will drop to about 400 in about 3-5 years. Obviosly, the top breeders like Bob Clark, Baldalgo, Prehistoric Pets, LLL, High End Herps and NERD perpetuate their own market challenges through the very act of selling their snakes to people who then have the know-how to replicate that same product for themselves and offer it on the market at ever lower prices. However, they shoudln't be complaining, because they are the ones who have hundreds of thousands of dollars to continually purchase newly discovered morphs, fund expeditions in South East Asia to discover new morphs themselves and operate elaborate breeding facilities that deliver increasingly rare morphs because they can afford to power feed their animals and turn out a new generation in virtually two years. I'm sure everyone saw those 6 retics which had the potential for over 80 morphs selling for 140 GRAND! At that price, top breeders are only selling back and forth between each other. Heck, most of these exotic morphs get bought and sold between amateur enthusiasts anyways - have you ever seen a "Yellow Headed Supertiger 100% Het for Albino" in any local pet shop? Nope, only online and at conventions. My point is even though they have lost their control of the supertiger prices and are losing their control of albino prices, they made enough money off each of those morphs when they had the market cornered that they now have the funds to produce new morphs and up the ante on those. And in 10 or 15 years when we can all afford Golden Child pure black retics at 500 a piece, they will have come up with something even more exotic looking than that. The market is only limited to the capacities of genetic mutation inherent in reproduction, which is virtually limitless. Maybe cross glass frog DNA with a snakes to make retics with a transparent epidermis - LOL, wouldn't that disgust our girlfriends!!! THOUGHTS?