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Please help assess a collection's value

Shaitan

Shaitan

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A dear friend of mine is going through a tough time splitting up with her partner and her attorney needs a full evaluation of a shared reptile collection. Part of the collection is Ball Pythons, which neither of us breed. Since she is dealing with enough right now, I've volunteered to do this for her.

I'm looking for anyone who knows what the current market value is for various ball morphs. I know how it can vary, since I spend a lot of time keeping an eye on the colubrid market, so I'm just hoping for an educated estimate of what the various animals are worth.

If you can spare a few minutes to help me help my friend, I would greatly appreciate it. I would prefer to keep the actual list private, so pm, email or phone would be my contact methods of choice.

Thanks in advance to any Ball fans who can help!
 
Realistic selling prices for individual snakes, or a group, is much different than some people's perceptions of market value.
Are you asking how much they could get for the snakes if they had to be sold as joint property? Or about the perceived group value. (Both of which are subject to individual opinion, but the latter much more so)
 
Sorry I wasn't clearer on what we are looking for. Basically, I am putting together an average price list for what it would cost to buy these snakes from a breeder today. This will give the attorneys a place to start dividing up their business assets.

I actually just met with my friend and got the final list. It turns out to be considerably longer than I knew, so I'm not about to ask any breeder to go through the whole thing. Pricing 57 balls is more than I would ever ask a stranger to do.

However, it would be a huge help to us if someone could get me the business names or sites of 3-5 of the industry leaders in ball python breeding. By this I mean the biggest businesses online who primarily breed their own, not the wholesalers or brokers. Sort of the equivalent of South Mountain and VMS with corns. I can use these to find most of the prices and adjust for age/proven status, then maybe spend some time digging to find the odds and ends that they don't have.

This really should have been done amicably with the help of her now former partner (the "expert" on the balls), but since he is the one who went off the deep end and involved the lawyers, here we are. :rolleyes:
 
You probably already know about kingsnake.com another large classified site. If you go to the ball python section of the classifieds there is a bar on top that has a majority of the larger ball python breeders. Most of the larger breeders also post adds there including the classifieds on fauna.
hope this helps im sure you already knew about them though
 
Thanks guys. I'll take a look at the breeder listings on kingsnake.com. I probably wouldn't have thought of that, since I prefer FC and CS.com. I don't care for the forum design on KS.com so I rarely visit it.

Hopefully I will find what I need from the breeders. If I rely on classified ads it will be way too confusing trying to tell who is selling at market value and who is dumping stock for whatever reason.
 
I wouldn't say that most of the prices posted on KS represent "market value" (and before anybody disputes that - post an ad, and see what kind of responses/offers you get); but if you are just going to fudge the numbers to adjust for various factors, it's as good a starting place as any. Keep in mind that the biggest breeders tend to have the highest prices, so your stated approach certainly won't yield "average" prices.
 
It may also be worth taking into consideration that if they have been breeding, there's really no way to put a value on eggs that have been/will be laid.
 
I completely agree. Which is why I wasn't really considering using any online classifieds as a starting point either. I know the markdowns I've done to move my corns, so it stands to reason the ball ads are not much different in principle.

However, I've found that looking at the low and average price of three or more large scale breeders is a solid starting range, which can then be further influenced by the age and proven status of the snake and the near-wholesale ad prices that can pop up. Does that seem reasonable with balls or am I missing something?
 
Shaitan said:
I completely agree. Which is why I wasn't really considering using any online classifieds as a starting point either. I know the markdowns I've done to move my corns, so it stands to reason the ball ads are not much different in principle.

However, I've found that looking at the low and average price of three or more large scale breeders is a solid starting range, which can then be further influenced by the age and proven status of the snake and the near-wholesale ad prices that can pop up. Does that seem reasonable with balls or am I missing something?
Click to expand...

Actually large scale breeder prices will not represent the normal prices you would get for your ball pythons. They have spent big money on advertising, have a reputation and a long standing customer base. Basically they will normally (not always) get way more money than anyone else, not to mention they would never tell you if they sold their balls cheaper than the advertised price... they want to make as much $ as possible and would not do anything to harm the market on their future sales. If you want more true prices then you should look at smaller breeders. Keep in mind... Size, sex, how nice the color/pattern and morph will all contribute to price.
 
I just wanted to follow up with a "thank you" for everyone who offered advice or lent a hand putting the list together. My friend turned it over to her attorney on Friday and everyone was satisfied with the result. We couldn't have done it in time on our own, so we greatly appreciate the assist. If I can ever return the favor, please don't hesitate to ask!

Todd
 
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