Named/LE Corals
- Thread starter gh0st
- Start date
ChrisB;84544 said:
There has deff been lots of bickering and harsh words going around here lately. And not just vendor / member conflicts but member / member. It's sad to see. 
It's important to have open, and yes, sometimes heated debates. I haven't really seen anything but opinions on this thread - no flames or personal attacks (of anyone here; yes a few non MASC vendors have been called dbags). I think the whole thing has been relatively civil so far. I know that this is some people's livelihood here, but honest open discussions are important to the community.
Back to original question, would I pay extra $$ for the name and hype? NO.
Would I pay extra $$ for the named and hyped pieces that I deemed I couldn't live without? YES.
Would I sell these pieces that cost me a small fortune at deeply discounted rates? NO.
As stated earlier, and have heard so many times before (even by the evil vendors), the market swings every now and again. A few years ago rainbow polyps were all the rage and they sold for $$$. Now it seems to be the chalice market that is pricey. If you don't like the current prices, DON'T PAY them. Wait a few years until they come down. Personally I really want a blue spot jawfish. I'm not willing to pay $100+ for it though. I'll wait until it comes down to $30-$50 range before I commit. It'll take a few years, my guess is until they are successfully bred in captivity for a few years then are readily available.
There are divers who dive everyday to collect coral for us. If we didn't set the demand for new and colorful pieces then they would ultimately be unable to fund the collection and shipping process. Are you able to sacrifice the collection aspect and just keep what you have/buy what's cheap until they run out of money? Why do we want the new color variations so badly? All this has already been answered in this thread. Stores can drop prices on non high-end coral all they want, its the high-end that people want. Will stores drop the pricing on high-end stuff? One sponsor has done this with sunburst nems. I've seen one of their nems, they look just like the high dollar sunbursts. Why did another sponsor increase the price of sunburst nems after seeing the demand? Its all on us. The whole point of selling cheap frags is underminded if they don't sell ALL their frags for cheap. $20 for a frag that's worth $20 leads me to wonder the regular price? Isn't that what the thread is about? Cheaper coral, no matter the name/hype? Sell me a 20 polyp SM colony for $20. A 80+ eye chalice mini colony of pink boobies for $80. The dollars and cents don't add up for the retail stores. But isn't that what they're portraying?
What we fail to understand is that we already have to rep of being to cheap state. We don't pay top dollar for most things, a few of us do. Go to other clubs' forums, West and East coast. They gladly pay $60 for a $100 polyp. How long did the SM polyp for $60 here go unsold? I'm cheap and proudly go about my day knowing so.
MY .02
Would I pay extra $$ for the named and hyped pieces that I deemed I couldn't live without? YES.
Would I sell these pieces that cost me a small fortune at deeply discounted rates? NO.
As stated earlier, and have heard so many times before (even by the evil vendors), the market swings every now and again. A few years ago rainbow polyps were all the rage and they sold for $$$. Now it seems to be the chalice market that is pricey. If you don't like the current prices, DON'T PAY them. Wait a few years until they come down. Personally I really want a blue spot jawfish. I'm not willing to pay $100+ for it though. I'll wait until it comes down to $30-$50 range before I commit. It'll take a few years, my guess is until they are successfully bred in captivity for a few years then are readily available.
There are divers who dive everyday to collect coral for us. If we didn't set the demand for new and colorful pieces then they would ultimately be unable to fund the collection and shipping process. Are you able to sacrifice the collection aspect and just keep what you have/buy what's cheap until they run out of money? Why do we want the new color variations so badly? All this has already been answered in this thread. Stores can drop prices on non high-end coral all they want, its the high-end that people want. Will stores drop the pricing on high-end stuff? One sponsor has done this with sunburst nems. I've seen one of their nems, they look just like the high dollar sunbursts. Why did another sponsor increase the price of sunburst nems after seeing the demand? Its all on us. The whole point of selling cheap frags is underminded if they don't sell ALL their frags for cheap. $20 for a frag that's worth $20 leads me to wonder the regular price? Isn't that what the thread is about? Cheaper coral, no matter the name/hype? Sell me a 20 polyp SM colony for $20. A 80+ eye chalice mini colony of pink boobies for $80. The dollars and cents don't add up for the retail stores. But isn't that what they're portraying?
What we fail to understand is that we already have to rep of being to cheap state. We don't pay top dollar for most things, a few of us do. Go to other clubs' forums, West and East coast. They gladly pay $60 for a $100 polyp. How long did the SM polyp for $60 here go unsold? I'm cheap and proudly go about my day knowing so.
MY .02
Anyone confused about hurt feelings go read http://www.marinecolorado.org/forums/showthread.php?7558-ideas-for-DBTC-Space-Monsters
Makes a bit more sense now.
Makes a bit more sense now.
I never intended any of this as a personal attack on anyone, and I truly apologize if it came across that way, but more as a open debate.
I do stand by what I said, however, and it is because of situations like this.
Markets Boom, Markets Crash. Especially in hype/rarity driven markets. When things crash, people get hurt.
The store has several polyps of Space Monsters (shudders at having to use a name) growing out, and while I'm not thrilled about the prospect of them being passed around for free, what are you going to do?
Prices fall, people trade, life goes on.
On the upside, these polyps grow fast enough, we should be seeing some nice sized colonies soon now that everyone isn't as motivated to chop of every polyp that rears it's pretty little head.
I do stand by what I said, however, and it is because of situations like this.
Markets Boom, Markets Crash. Especially in hype/rarity driven markets. When things crash, people get hurt.
The store has several polyps of Space Monsters (shudders at having to use a name) growing out, and while I'm not thrilled about the prospect of them being passed around for free, what are you going to do?
Prices fall, people trade, life goes on.
On the upside, these polyps grow fast enough, we should be seeing some nice sized colonies soon now that everyone isn't as motivated to chop of every polyp that rears it's pretty little head.
I never really got into the whole named coral phase. If it looks nice, it looks nice. My shop once got 4 named zoa frags in but not much interest so we never did it again. I remember going to a swap last year and having to ask Jon all the names of the corals I was selling. Really kinda of funny looking back at it.
I did get three of the HPE's and they went in my personal tank. Very pretty. It is fun being a nerd as well.
I did get three of the HPE's and they went in my personal tank. Very pretty. It is fun being a nerd as well.