TandJ
Ole' Stoic Viper...
I have '08 hatchlings that are 38 grams and even under as well as some that are over 200 grams, so you can't go by size and weight as a determination of age. As for it being a RO, it depends upon ypour definition of an RO. Some people consider only a wide white saddle border as classifying an amel as being an RO, while others only consider those with rich orange ground color an RO. Then you have the high-white RO's which probably come from candy cane backgrounds as well. Don produces both types of RO's...those with rich orange ground color as well as the high-whites. He also produces candy canes. The amel in question may very well be from Don's stock and be classified as an RO. It can be difficult to determine how an RO is going to end up being. This snake may be called an RO...just not a perfect one only because his saddle borders aren't super wide. His ground color is just more like the high-whites, and than again, just not a perfect specimen.
As Susan pointed out... There are wide opinions on RO's, and for that matter, any cornsnake morph... To me thats a georgous Amel... Obviously $100 is way to much IMHO, but you paid it because you liked the snake anyways, so I don;t know so much what your issue is, other than you feel the seller dupped you because you never hit the books to research and look for what you consider to be the perfect RO... You got what you wanted because you liked the animal regardless.. Its called a live and learn...
Regards... Tim of T and J