Good one. Make us do the dirty work of deciding.....
OK. The old Monmouth Co male and the Burlington Co female you have been using have produced some of the finest clean, high-chained Easterns....maybe ever. I doubt that the market (myself included) will ever have enough Easterns of that caliber. Of the many pattern expressions of Eastern Kings, the ones from the Monmouth x Burlington pair are, IMO, the ne plus ultra of the quintessential look.
If I understand correctly the info in your earlier posts, that Burlington female has already paired with a VERY excellent male who is a MD x NC animal. While not locality animals, the offspring could be breathtaking. I suppose it adds a small something for me if I have locality specific animals, but truly, all my cb stuff comes from breeders who cherry-pick their pairings, same as me. These baby snakes are meant to be cherished by their human caretakers, and not intended to be released, ever. Why not pair two outstanding animals from the same range (I know--it's not the same population, but it is the same range, and very likely no worse than merely distant bits of the same ancestral gene pool)? I for one look foreward to see the offspring of the MD male and the NJ female. They will be pets, and no doubt will add to the lives of their keepers.
That said, I hope you will breed your Monmouth male to your new NJ female. CB locality animals are no more eligible for release than non-locality ones, but it's still an indefinable extra something to have locality animals of good quality. I'd like to see your old male continue to date, as it were, as long as he's able. He is an outstanding animal, and the more of his genes he leaves behind, the better for the cb population, I say. I get the impression you feel he might not be around for many more years, and there will be plenty of time to pair the younger animals with other males.
These concepts contribute to my breeding management in my collection, so I'm sharing. One other concept influences my pairing choices; success. If I have a pairing I know will produce outstanding babies, I repeat it, maybe for as long as I breed those animals. I for one am thrilled you chose the MD male for the NJ female--I think the offspring will be fantastic, and may launch a new fabulous line. Still, the Monmouth male and the Burlington female sure delivered the 10's. Maybe next year, if the old NJ male is still in a courtin' mood, perhaps you can contemplate reprising the pairing that made such beautiful music in the past.
