Palmetto Reservations

[Lavender]

Has any on jumped on that reservation list?

 

[Carinata]

Has any on jumped on that reservation list?

I have seriously considered it, but I am afraid that the value will drop to quickly.

 

[Outcast]

Kidneys sell for $160,000 on the black market, and you have an extra one lying around anyways :dancer:

I need my kidneys. There is a possibility that I may have issues with one...lol

I have seriously considered it, but I am afraid that the value will drop to quickly.

Being a Het gene, you will make your money back before the drop in price is too much. Fortunately for those who are buying these animals, it will take a bit longer to see drops in price, like we did with Tessera.

 

[Kaminoke]

Has any on jumped on that reservation list?

I have recently inquired about if any B-level reservations are still available, and if so I am giving serious consideration. If nothing else, I'm hopefully on the C level.

They are taking large steps to keep control of this morph so that the market doesn't get flooded with them and the price doesn't drop so fast. The 2012 reservations are limited and are for females only. No males or hets of any gender will be sold for a few years yet. So those people that get the 2012 morphs will not be able to produce any visual Palmettos until around 2018, or a little earlier if they're hard on their females. So I don't foresee the price dropping so dramatically to not make it a potentially very worthwhile investment. If I got a 2012 female, a few others would have one too, but other than those with 2012 females and Don himself, no one could produce that morph. And I already know exactly who I'd breed her too once she was ready..

 

[Chip]

I'm thinking really hard on reserving one of these. At year 2, I am nowhere close to recouping my tessera investment, but most of that is me buying 3 females & 2 males of a co-dom snake. I expect some real freaks to pop up in these Palmettos! Plus adding some other recessive traits to the mix should make things interesting for years to come. I just don't know how many people there will be in the coming economy who would be willing to drop even $1,000 on a snake. That's the gamble.

 

[kgmax1228]

Buyers

I'm thinking really hard on reserving one of these. At year 2, I am nowhere close to recouping my tessera investment, but most of that is me buying 3 females & 2 males of a co-dom snake. I expect some real freaks to pop up in these Palmettos! Plus adding some other recessive traits to the mix should make things interesting for years to come. I just don't know how many people there will be in the coming economy who would be willing to drop even $1,000 on a snake. That's the gamble.

few and far between

 

[Millinex]

I've looked at these snakes, and other snakes offered a lot lately, and I've looked closely at the price margins and market trends. It all comes down to how Don has the next few years mapped out for producing these animals and offering them for sale.

Looking at it from an investment standpoint- I know he's selling females this year, that's all I can go off of because that is all I know. You could potentially have the original buyers of said females producing the morph as early as 2017- and trust me, knowing people's drive for money I'd say we will see some in 2017.

Now look at what we don't know- what will be sold the second year? If it's more females exclusively- your market will stay relatively safe, it may fall a very slight margin, but not huge. If males are offered- your profit margin just dropped. Sure you may not have everyone buying say, the 5k-6k male, but those that do will have produced animals far earlier than the rest of the initial investors. All of your initial investors are now going to struggle to make their money back at market value, but it won't be as bad.

What if hets are sold? They will surely be much cheaper- most people who bought the original females will pick up het males, again, more animals produced cheaper. The less money someone has into a project, the more likely that they will ask less money for the result.

Frankly, seeing as though Don is the only one with the morph, I won't invest into it. It's too risky. Don completely 100% controls the market on these animals for the next several years. Essentially, Don could have produced and sold off a number of these animals, at relatively high cost, and at the same time completely destroyed the market value for everyone else. Making a hefty profit and leaving everyone else struggling to recoup their money over the next couple of years.

I tend to stick with animals where the market decides the price, not a person.

 

[Nanci]

You could potentially have the original buyers of said females producing the morph as early as 2017- and trust me, knowing people's drive for money I'd say we will see some in 2017.

I'm betting we see the first Palmettos produced from the 2011 females in 2015 or even 2014.

 

[Nanci]

Frankly, seeing as though Don is the only one with the morph, I won't invest into it. It's too risky. Don completely 100% controls the market on these animals for the next several years. Essentially, Don could have produced and sold off a number of these animals, at relatively high cost, and at the same time completely destroyed the market value for everyone else. Making a hefty profit and leaving everyone else struggling to recoup their money over the next couple of years.

I tend to stick with animals where the market decides the price, not a person.

So let's say you found the Palmetto lounging around in your yard. What is your business plan for that snake?

 

[Millinex]

So let's say you found the Palmetto lounging around in your yard. What is your business plan for that snake?

The exact same thing Don is doing. An amazing amount of money can be made from this morph for the initial producer if they play the cards right for any snake. I'd breed it- release animals I know will not give me competition for the first few years.

If you play your cards right, not only did you make several thousand dollars, but even once everyone else starts producing the snakes I still basically control the market due to quantity etc.

 

[Kaminoke]

Yeah, I certainly don't plan on making my money back until several years after my purchase. Even if the price drops to under $1000 at that point, which I doubt it would go that far down if Don keeps to his plan about how long to wait before selling males or hets, then you can still recoup your initial investment from quantity selling, or seeing how palmetto combines with other morphs... either way, it's a huge risk (especially if it DIES), but with a potentially good payout.

 

[Millinex]

I don't see the corn market as large enough or stable enough to even sell them above 1k after the first couple of years. That's just me though.

 

[Pasodama]

Looking at it from an investment standpoint- I know he's selling females this year, that's all I can go off of because that is all I know.

Don is not selling any Palmettos until next year (2012). At that time, he will only be selling females (though reservations are being taken this year).
According to him, no males, or hets, will likely be sold until 2015 or later.
Edit: Unless, by "selling females this year", you meant the 2012 females since he is/did take prepayments.

 

[Naagas]

IMO, palmettos are a good investment and a good price. Livestock always has risk, but this is a smart and beautiful investment.

 

[Blue Apple Herps]

I don't see the corn market as large enough or stable enough to even sell them above 1k after the first couple of years. That's just me though.

This.

The corn market is non-existant right now. It's beyond over saturated and I just don't see a new morph holding value at all, there just won't be a market for it - at least at a price high enough to recoup any money back.

Just look at cinders - in just a couple of years they've gone down 90% in value or so. Granted the palmetto is much more unique than cinders, but $4k is money you most likely won't ever see again. Just my 2¢.

 

[Kokopelli]

I think that one should recall that the market is never in a permanent state.
I don't know enough to predict how it will look in 4+ years time, but remember that when the animals will be offered, they will be available in a market state different from today... for better or worse, I can't tell... but I would advise against counting on the current state of market for an investment that will bear fruits 4 years from now.

 

[El Jefe]

At year 2, I am nowhere close to recouping my tessera investment.......

The market has seen it happen with many of the "newer" morphs (tesseras, cinders, golddust, sunkissed, etc.) It'll be interesting to see whether a "controlled" morph will "keep" its value or whether when they are let out little by little the investors who have the opportunity to make $3500 first will take the shot or wait around to see if anyone bites at $4000. Eventually, there will be no $4000 buyers and someone will have to decrease the price...who, when, and how many $4000 buyers are out there are the big unanswered questions and only time will tell.

The "investment" potential is a good one if you are the first to find and saturate the buyers at the top tiers. As the tiers get used up, however, the prices will have to become lower and your potential to "make your money back" will take more snakes. Much like with tesseras, if the market saturates quickly and people are worried they cannot get their money back they may be quick to sell at a lower price to get what they can to cut their losses. And yes, I do know that with tesseras one is working with a codom/dom gene so the reproduction rate is faster but even with that there was still around a 50% price drop in a few years.

...And....one day in the future (5, 10, or 20 years :shrugs all the $500 buyers will be used up too and then it will be lowered again. Snows used to be expensive....

 

[Chip]

I realize this is quite a bump, but my deposit has been sent. My rationale is, I won't even try to hurry her along and produce anything year two. By year three, I'll should easily have her ready to produce hets. Grow up one male and by year 4, I should have visual animals. If she lays an average clutch of 20-25 eggs, and I get 10 visuals, I would only have to sell them for $400 each to recoup my initial investment. And I don't suspect the price will drop that much THAT fast! Looking at my post from a year ago, I disagree with my past thinking that combo morphs will offer much with the Palmetto. Only the eye color and the rare colored scale will really be affected. Maybe amel blood or something could have a neat effect, but I really suspect Palmetto to override most everything else. But it's still the neatest corn snake I've ever seen.
Do I think I'll get rich off these? Heck no. But barring losing the original animal, I should do better than break even over the long term and I'll have a really cool display snake for my shop -and get to play with something really cool!

 

[El Jefe]

If she lays an average clutch of 20-25 eggs, and I get 10 visuals, I would only have to sell them for $400 each to recoup my initial investment. And I don't suspect the price will drop that much THAT fast!

I wonder how many others are coming up with scenarios like this? The big "If I only produce X amount and can sell them for Y" is a nice dream but as the market has seen with about every morph out there (cornsnake and otherwise) the dream price of Y fades due to eventualities where the dream scenario has one holding onto a snake for a long, long time because price Y does not result in a sale. Finally, someone comes along with price Z which is lower than Y and it sells but everyone else with price Y is still holding onto their snakes. Soon, the new price becomes Z and eventually Z-n where n is an increasing positive integer that heads closer and closer to Z.

And yes, I've been watching Numbers on Netflix...

 

[ratsncorns]

That made complete sense to me Dr. Mohr!