Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am not too skilled on what makes a GOOD gray band. I bought this female oooh about 6 months ago. I think she is the most beautiful thing. I have to sell her though. Doing a MAJOR cutback on my snakes. We moved into a new house and the bills are jsut too high here. I'm only keeping my Rosys and perhaps my milksnakes. What I want to know, is what are your opinions on her. While I amy think she is beautiful, maybe she is not waht most people look for in a gray band? I hope this makes sense. I already put the ad in teh kingsnake classifieds. But I am now having second thoughts. I need some imput on her! Hope I am making some sense here. lol
Here are the pics

While I amy think she is beautiful, maybe she is not waht most people look for in a gray band?

Everyone has their own preferences. I think most people who just want a pet alterna tend to go for the wide orange bands with either a light gray or dark gray background.

However, some people prefer the snakes with very little red, some prefer speckled snakes, etc. I have seen some that people described as screamers that I thought were average, at best!

Your snake is attractive. If you like her, then who cares what the rest of us think???
-----
Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

Like Chris says "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" In my opinion this is an attractive snake with very clean markings. The fact that its a female and allready taking pinks makes it worth more than a similary looking male. Since you didn't mention anything about locality I presume it would be considered "generic". It definitely has eastern alterna looks, probably from 277 or Juno road ancestry but the alterna "conisouers" won't be interested if it is not from a specific locality. Still if someone just wants a good attractive female alterna that eats well allready then your snake would be perfect for them. When I was first getting into alterna "a thousand years ago" I would of bought your snake in a heartbeat! I'm sure there are plenty of potential buyers out there today if you can reach them. Good luck! BA

As the others have posted, beauty is in the eye of the beholder . . . especially with alterna. If you don't believe that, scroll down for the long thread regarding my wc'95 black gap snake from a few months ago!

However, it seemed like you were asking for opinions regarding pricing of your snake for a possible sale. I would offer these suggestions:

1. think about what you paid for it and what the person who sold it to you was asking
2. if you bought it as a non-feeder, and now you've got it feeding
3. is it a yearling or cb'05?
4. Look at ads and see what others are asking for similar snakes
5. How soon do you need it to be sold?

All that said, and not knowing some of the above info (esp. #1) I would think that in Today's market, that, were it my snake to sell, I ask about $50-75 for it, depending on the above factors (e.g. $50 if it was a cb'05 and $75 if it was a cb'04 . . . or . . . $50 if you need it sold yesterday, $75 if you can sit on it . . . etc). Just my $.02 worth

Troy

In my opinion this is a really nice snake - but I am biased I like all the phases equal - but I do prefer the many differnt varieties of the alterna-morphs. ten years ago I would have paid $200.00 for a yearling female like her that is feeding well. In todays market I think that it is accurate to say that you would be hard pressed to sell her for more than $100.00 shipped.

My advice would be that for a healty feeding lone female try not to go lower than that unless you must, here is why - In my opinion once a hatchling eats it more than doubbles the price, so if the snake is worth $35-$40 as a hatchling (which a non locality alterna is pretty much these days)as soon as it feeds on uncented on it's own it is worth $75, no less - but unfortunately you won't get much more - or at least not enough to worry about. and another year won't really add much to the price either - it will cost you more to feed it than it will increase in dollar value.

If you got to sell her you should be able to. just try to find her a good home and someone who will take good care of her.

and for looks - Wide orange is the prefered by most - (not me) but the best pair for a beginner is a blairs phase and alterna phase anyway, and it is easy to find a nice - lone blairs male.

Locality alterna are an entirely different deal, but overall they are priced pretty low too.

actually if you add it up - between buying, feeding, the cost of the ad and shipping and your time at 75 bucks you are really giving the snake away

Good luck,
Jim Dobis