Expensive garters

[ConcinusMan]

Here's a couple of $400-500+ (i get the feeling you don't believe me...)
Scott Felzer's Garter Snakes, specializing in aberrant garters
Scott Felzer's Garter Snakes, specializing in aberrant garters
Scott Felzer's Garter Snakes, specializing in aberrant garters

And here's the $45,000 ball python, just for the heck of it.
Most Expensive Snakes

Oh, I believed you, I just didn't know what albinos you were talking about. And $45,000 for a ball python isn't even close to high end. I've seen some for $250,000 before. Don't even get me started on retics.

The albinos that Scott is charging those prices for, aren't all that easy to produce. It's not just as simple as producing more. Erythristic albinos for example are combo morphs. You can breed two snakes with the right genes, but to get them to come together just right in any one snake in the litter, the odds are very slim. And as far as albino flames go, it's a similar situation. Even when you do beat the odds and get an albino flame, their color always varies. To get very intense colored flames that are also albino... again, low odds even if you breed the right snakes, very few will be "high end". It's not like other albinos such as iowas or nebraskas. Your litter either has them, or it doesn't, and they are easy to produce. Not so with the expensive albinos you listed there.

[snakeman]

Oh, I believed you, I just didn't know what albinos you were talking about. And $45,000 for a ball python isn't even close to high end. I've seen some for $250,000 before. Don't even get me started on retics.

The albinos that Scott is charging those prices for, aren't all that easy to produce. It's not just as simple as producing more. Erythristic albinos for example are combo morphs. You can breed two snakes with the right genes, but to get them to come together just right in any one snake in the litter, the odds are very slim. And as far as albino flames go, it's a similar situation. Even when you do beat the odds and get an albino flame, their color always varies. To get very intense colored flames that are also albino... again, low odds even if you breed the right snakes, very few will be "high end". It's not like other albinos such as iowas or nebraskas. Your litter either has them, or it doesn't, and they are easy to produce. Not so with the expensive albinos you listed there.

Out of about 50 babies I got I got 5 really nice albino flames.Yes, They are hard to produce.Albino erythristics are even harder.

[RedSidedSPR]

Oh, I believed you, I just didn't know what albinos you were talking about. And $45,000 for a ball python isn't even close to high end. I've seen some for $250,000 before. Don't even get me started on retics.

$250,000?!? Who would pay that much? You could buy a freaking Ferrari with that!! Not to mention it's probably hardly any different from the normal ball python. jeez.

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

Oh, I believed you, I just didn't know what albinos you were talking about. And $45,000 for a ball python isn't even close to high end. I've seen some for $250,000 before. Don't even get me started on retics.

having many personal friends that are off the deep end into the python morphs... $45,000 is definitely high end! Not too many pythons actually sell cash value for that you know. The majority of snakes that are priced that high, are traded for other extremely rare and valuable morphs or expensive items such as a whole new room full of caging... a car... etc! A lot of morph people use their own self-proved out rare morphs to gain leverage to get other things they don't have or can't afford to outright buy. they don't usually start selling for actual outright cash until they hit like, $7k. There are ALWAYS exceptions... and I personally watched a guy lay out $12k in CASH on a table for a snake at a show... but a lot of outrageously priced snakes are not actually exchanged for real money.... and if they are, generally, it's a payment plan or a partial cash partial trade.

[Stefan-A]

Supply and demand. That's still what determines the price.

[ConcinusMan]

You would think so, but I've seen prices not follow that rule before. Do you think for one minute if Scott dropped the price of say, iowa albinos to $50 regardless of supply, that everyone wouldn't do so as well? Personally, I'm struggling with trying to figure out why they are still "up there" in price but then I go to his website and there's my answer.

Now don't go all mad on me and think I'm bashing Scott, I'm not dangit.

[RicMartin]

The way to make them more affordable is to buy them (if you care enough about the project) and produce more of them.
As long as they're rare they will remain expensive. As long as they are expensive most people won't have them, and they'll remain rare.

I have no interest in "investment pythons", but compared to the trash bankers are peddling these days, those guys may (just almost may) not be all that crazy. Breeding numbers of any animals do compound geometrically (& devaluate likewise, so it's a wax on, wax off, silly wabbit thing, IMHO)
If four or five of us started breeding paradox garters we'd see them soon come down to around $100 which I think is a good price for a common cb snake of any kind. I've never felt I was overpaying for a garter or milk morph, it takes work to find them & breed them, I feel work should be compensated.

[RedSidedSPR]

I kinda figured that. But really I don't think they're worth that much.

[ConcinusMan]

Definitely not.

[ConcinusMan]

That's rather strange. I definitely don't experience a shortage of photos when I search online. Maybe it comes down to the terms you are searching for. I have no problem at all getting my own photos and posts to show up in a google search.

I see what you're saying about not "dumbing it down" and the answer to that is simple. It looks like you copied that from Scott Felzer's website and I must say that his garter snakes sell out fast and all of his customers know what that stuff means so there's no need to "dummy it down" to reach more people since they all sell out anyway, sometimes before they are even born. Those details written there (percentages, "het", etc.) are very important to those who are paying that much for garter snakes. The rest of those words are morph names. And yes, most of the buyers are breeders. If you're not planning on breeding there's really no point in paying extra money for a 100% het, or a little less for a 66% het, and no point in even buying any kind of "het" (A normal looking snake carrying genes for say, albino for example) when you could just buy a normal a lot cheaper. So if you're not breeding, that stuff is meaningless to you anyway. If you are breeding, you know what it means already.