Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well, I thought I saw an Ivory for $75k last month and then again I saw another for $25k that seems liek a heck of a downward swing... Whats the deal with this Ivory market.... I see RDR proved his line of goblins out to be het ivories and several others have done the same.. So what everyones take on this... Does this mean when I see YB for $3k now and less. Was the Ivory the fastest declining ball morph ever or what???

The breeder realized he wasnt going to get anything near the asking price so he stopped trying to buy a new house with the snake and instead a new SUV thats all. Nothin to do with the market there are too few ivorys for much of a market yet anyways..

I cant touch a house in my niebhor hood for under 200,000

I think it's kinda hard to decide on a price when only a few of these animals (Ivories) exist. Once there are a few dozen floating around for sale then sellers can sorts compare prices and decide together on a market price. One person asks $20K and another asks $75K. Once a few other breeders start to sell, they'll decide which price is more suitable.

I really think that the Yellow Belly (Het Ivory) has hit a price level that is a bit low considering the rarity of the homozygous Ivory. There is no way it should be competing with the Spiders. Who knows? It may go up in market value like some of the other morphs out there...considering what it does.

They are definitely worth more than $5K each.

Chris
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mean people suck

.. what other snake can you get for only $5k which can create a white snake ...none ...what other snake morph can you get for $5k than when mixed with relatively "normal snakes" - Granites, Weird Stripes, etc can throw such great new morphs ....none ... IMO YBs are awesome animals that are way under priced .... just like Ghosts a few years ago were under priced ...when people start to realise what they can produce with a YB, they will be considered more valuable ..especially the females ..which are worth their weight in gold ....

cheers, John
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John Berry Reptiles

www.johnberryreptiles.com

Excellent answer Chris, your thinking is 100% correct ! Nobody wanted to sell off the Ivories in the begining , hence the huge asking price , if someone wanted one really bad they were going to have to pay a small fortune to get one.. Once more Ivories are produce the market will establish itself, the Blue Eyed and Black Eyed Leucistic markets are no different at this point! People would rather pay 10-25k for the "het pair" and make their own than pay the asking price for the white ones! It's much like the albino was back 10 years ago, back then people bought the Hets and made their own albinos instead of paying $7500-10,000 for an albino male, the homozygeous stage was just to much for most to take on , just as Chris says the Het Ivories are undervalued , but those of us that have the gene will start to realize that in my cases it's better to keep them and breed them than to sell them cheap, this eventually will bring the market back where it should be. I'm very happy to be working with the Ivory gene, regardless of market prices , this gene will prove to be one of the most versatile genes we've seen yet, just wait and see! Anthony McCain-McCain's Reptiles.

I think the reason Yellowbellies are experiencing a lack of buyer enthusiasm is because it is fairly difficult to tell them apart from normals, and no one wants to pay $5,000 for a snake to find out 2 to 3 years later that they were had.

Even if they do purchase a real Yellowbelly, selling Yellowbelly offspring would be a lot like selling selling hets of any other morph -- the Buyer would need to trust the impecable reputation of the breeder whom he/she is purchasing from. Otherwise, it'd be like buying a het Albino without paperwork based on the word of the seller.

If I'm going to invest $5 K into an animal for investment purposes, I want to feel confident I'm going to get a return on that investment. For a little more I could purchase a Mohave, a Spider or a Cinnamon Pastel. There'd be no guesswork on my part about the snake I'd be buying and no one would question what the offspring were because they could easily be differentiated from normals.

What makes more sense? Buy a snake to produce "het ivorys" or buy an easily identifiable co-dom morph that will produce easily identifiable co-com morphs? Until I, too, become a "big name breeder" I know selling hets of any type would be an uphill battle.

THIS is the drawback to investing in yellowbellies.

My two cents.
Respectfully,
Joe

" I think the reason Yellowbellies are experiencing a lack of buyer enthusiasm is because it is fairly difficult to tell them apart from normals,"

...Huh ...what lack of buyer enthusiasm ??...we have sold plenty of YBs - both CB babies and WC adults over the last 18 months or so ... True YBs are really a true VISABLE morph ...once you see a real YB ..there is no more guessing ... I think the key is buying from a breeder or seller you trust .... and of course the whole pointless confusion created by those who insist a YB is not a het Ivory unless it is from a proven Ivory line ... its time to get real ... YBs are not mysterious and hard to tell apart from normals at all .. and all YBs are capable of producing Ivories and thus are true het Ivories ...

cheers, John
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John Berry Reptiles

www.johnberryreptiles.com

I agree. And the problem regarding "trust" is not exclusive to the Yellow Belly. This applies to ANY animal -- heterozygous or otherwise.

And as long as the animal (Yellow Belly) can be verified by a reliable and impartial third party...

Chris
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mean people suck

The Faunaclassifieds has created a good guy chart... I hear it works well KS should do a feedback of breeders that are paying to advertise....

Last weekend at Bayou City Breeders Expo in Houston I saw a gorgeous Purple Axanthic Ball Python, only a couple months old, for 85K. Wish I had a camera with me.
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An angry Dragon may eat you, but an angry Woman is truly dangerous.

0.0.1 Ball Python - Bobbie
0.1.0 Desert Banded King - Unnamed
1.0.0 Nile Monitor - Auset
0.0.1 TAME Tokay Gecko - Storm
0.1.0 Golden Gecko - Duo
0.0.1 Striped African Fat-Tail Gecko - Kirsa
0.0.1 Cuban Knight Anole - Lance
0.1.1 Spiny Softshell Turtles - Panycake & Unnamed
1.0.0 Budgett's Frog - Bidgie
0.0.2 3-Eyed Hermit Crab and normal Hermit Crab - both Unnamed

Do you remember who had the purple Axanthic? Tom Stevens

>>Do you remember who had the purple Axanthic? Tom Stevens
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Tosha

"Stupid is forever, ignorance can be fixed." Don Wood

"Of course, that's only my opinion...and I believe I am God." =) Chris Bianco

7.33.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy and gang)
1.0.0 Angolan Python (Skywalker)
0.0.1 Green Tree Python
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Dessert Tortoise (Pope John Paul)
2.2.1 Fish (1,2,3,4)
0.0.0 Pool skimmer rescues for this season

Yellowbellies throw better looking morphs than the rest you mentioned in your post (IMO). I hope YB's stay underrated until I get one next year, cause they are the key to countless morph combinations. They are also easy to tell what they are if you only have a clue!
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Chad Bachman

Thanks for the insult, Chad.

I haven't seen a Yellowbelly in person, only what has been posted on Kingsnake. I've gone through the "morph guide" detailing the flames on the side, the black patterning along the edges of the belly, etc. The bottom line is, I still can't be 100% or even 70% positive that I can tell a strange normal from a Yellowbelly, and I wouldn't buy one from anyone other than the MOST trusted and reputable breeder. In my case, I'd only buy from Bryan Kollwitz of ExoticBallPythons.

That being said, do you really think I'm alone in my Yellowbelly confusion? Do you really think I'm the only one who is "clueless." Or do you suppose there might be others out there, possibly the MAJORITY of potential buyers who have also never seen a Yellowbelly in person, who feel the same lack of certainty and skepticism concerning the Yellowbelly that I do?

Regarding my statement that a "lack of buyer enthusiasm" exists for the Yellowbelly ... the reason this string got started was because of the original posters observation in the difference between prices of a couple Ivories offered for sale ... then the discussion became about Yellowbellies and how "undervalued they are" compared to other morphs that produce all white snakes, etc. WHY do you suppose the price for Yellowbellies isn't higher?

It's because the MAJORITY of potential buyers can't tell them apart from normals! If they could, Yellowbellies would be as expensive as Mohave's and others that ARE easily told apart from normals. THAT was the point of my first post.

Respectfully, and without reciprocal insults.
-- Joe

Don't take it personal. I am confused by the whole yellow belly thing myself. If people want to insult us then let them. Maybe thats what makes their day better. I'm still wondering why we haven't seen Ivories, Ebonies, or whatever else the YB helps create come out of the wild. If ALL these WC yellow bellies are the REAL DEAL then you'd expect some would have bred in the wild. I DO THINK there are some REAL yellow bellies but I also think some of these people that HAVE A CLUE are going to be disappointed when they breed theirs. AND.... I am not interested in how many YB's they produce if they don't produce an Ivory its just a normal to me. Ron
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The Crawl Space

It was not my intention to insult you at all, but if you took as an insult my job is done...LOL

Really, I was not insulting you (never crossed my mind), and I still don't see how they are hard to tell what they are.

Sorry you feel that way about my post. Take it easy.
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Chad Bachman

I have posted several times, and read all the guides out there, studied the photos.. I must be a total idiot... Granted, i dont know much about balls.. I am trying to learn all i can, but a YB looks just like a normal to me. Maybe i am looking at the wrong things.. who knows. But i have gone to Petco to see what they have every now and then because ATM they are the only ones around with balls.. and i can "see" the traits they say a YB is supposed to have in some of those at Petco... As i said, i am not even close to an expert, never claimed to be, but when you have people in the classifieds selling what they "claim" to be a YB and i ask about it in the forums and some of the "experts" write back saying it isnt a YB... what are those of us that dont know a YB from a Normal supposed to do? It all seems very subjective to me.. its like we all see what we want to see.

Not to start an argument or anyhting, but is there any PROVEN YB lines out there, or is it the needle in the haystack everyone is in the race to get ahold of to be the first to get the KNOWN line?

25K? you say.. You tell me who I happen to have 25K in cash laying around right now! call me!

B&T Morphs
Houston Tx,
832-659-8225

i remember seeing the 75k ivory and thinking WOW i have to one day get one of those... and i think the outragous numbers put on some first time offered animals are for just that reason...they are the ONLY ones available...if someone wants in at the starting level of any morph without buying the animals that have to be raised to produce them(YB) then it WILL cost you........you never know whos out there and how much they have so if you offer it up for say 20- 25k then nobody is ever gonna say how about i give you 75....its the only one offered so put whatever number on it you want and hope for the best ........does anyone know if that animal sold for 75k?......and if it did then did the buyer get burned cause he can get them cheeper ......NO he payed it without a gun to his head and in time will produce animals to get his investment back......and to some 75k is like 7500 to others.......ive seen gorgeous animals from ALL the big breeders and from some people ive never heard of but prehistoric pets who offered that animal has posted pics of animals that made me drool......remember their pastel butter my god i need that snake here.....in time i will but im way out of range for the 20 k morphs out there but in time with the drop of prices and my producing and trading to aquire new morphs each year he will end up here one day.......i would never have taken this so far or have looked foward to the future with all everyone on here has done to promote this one time quite normal rarely captive bred (do to small cluth size,mass numbers of imports and how cheep they come in) animal......but you can wander through their natural habitats until youve covered every square inch and never ever see a pastel butter to name one of the now countless morphs out there......THANK YOU ALL and keep it up .....................Jerry Lowry SJS Reptiles

sory to have taken the topic and ended up somewhere else with it .......i just started babbling.

Does this look like a normal ball python to you?

Is this the Ivory that no one wants??

For the last two years, I have been systematically going through every Yellowbelly offered for sale from Africa and buying as many of the real ones that I see as I can afford.
I have purchased many and seen many that are not the real thing.
If you see one offered day after day on the classifieds and the price is too low, then it is obviously not the real thing.
I have had to post an animal only once to sell it and have had no problems with selling out of the 2004 animals.
As for the price drop, when you see someone offering something for 75k it is because they don't really want or expect to sell it, rather it is a way of showing off an animal that they just got.
If anyone is really concerned with the validity of a Het Ivory then they should be purchasing them from a proven line that is producing Ivorys.
Thanks
Amir

Then what is market price on a proven yellowbelly..The classifieds are rather confusing....

I have had a discussion with some people over what the price may be this year.
There are many things that can be made with the yellowbelly and it is underpriced at $5000 for 2005 males.
2005 females are still based on availability.

thanks
amir