The whole coral pricing has become a joke

[Servillius]

sde1500: From my perspective, yes, a picture is what we should go by. Its unrealistic to think people are going to do genetic testing or maintain pedigrees. A pic with a description is what I'd prefer.

This practice would be more honest because it wouldnt imply that all "rastas" are the same or even related -- and it would help move prices down across the board, because it would make it obvious that there are lots of yellow, green, and orange zoas on the market. Whereas JoeBobs Special LE Rasta sounds rare even though its actually just another green yellow and orange zoa.

Just my two cents.


So you think the price other people are willing to pay for gasoline doesnt affect the price the gas station charges you? I'm not sure where to start in dispelling that misconception, if so.

WYSIWYG is great. Pics are great. Descriptions are great. Names however are just short, easily recognizable descriptions (how is "superman" materially different than red and blue?) and as such they too are useful. At this point the fact that there is some dude in Boise who still forks out $2000 each for yellow polyps just because his favorite vendor keeps coming up with interesting synonyms for the word "gold" has very little to do with the average buyer and the average seller who use names as a shorthand to communicate efficiently about a coral.

I just want to explore your last statement a bit though. Are you saying supply and demand works but you're just unhappy that other people value the item more than you; so will pay more? (People's willingness to pay more for gas affects you, but you only appear to concede it does so negatively). Isn't that a pretty good case for them getting to have it instead of you? Or is it just that other matter less than you so their enjoyment of the thing is irrelevant to you?

Can someone look up the definition of greed for me?

 

[SeattleReefer]

Can someone look up the definition of greed for me?

from wiki...
Erich Fromm described greed as "a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction."



Sounds like a good description of this hobby! :fun4:

 

[fe342185]

Hi All,
I just upgraded my 45 cube to a 150 cube. With lots more space i went on a frag hunt locally for anyone selling anything. Got about 3 dozens of sps, lps, acans and zoos. I dont care much about the names and dont care for the high prices. I did not record or note what things are. I really do enjoy the hobby and i have found a handful of guys selling hugher end frags cheap and I fully i tend to do the same. When they over grow my tank I will be selling everything for $5 frag regardless of what they are. I would also refuse to sell to anyone with intentions to flip it or to vendors.

I think the naming of corals has gotten out of hand and i have personally spoken to a vendor who told me they purposely give these corals fancy names for larger margins. If they dont know the name then they make it up.

Ive also spoken to the local reefers who sold me their frags for cheap and they have gotten backlash from other local hobbyist. I believe the corals are worth what they are worth for the buyer and the seller. No one is forced to buy anything so if you pay a lot for a coral then good for you that you are able to have funding and the seller.

I may be alone in my views but I just wanted to get it out there.

 

[Servillius]

from wiki...
Erich Fromm described greed as "a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction."



Sounds like a good description of this hobby! :fun4:

I'm not going to argue with your hypothesis. You have to be a bit crazy to get into this mess. But Erich Fromm? Who are we quoting next, Madonna?

 

[Servillius]

Hi All,
I just upgraded my 45 cube to a 150 cube. With lots more space i went on a frag hunt locally for anyone selling anything. Got about 3 dozens of sps, lps, acans and zoos. I dont care much about the names and dont care for the high prices. I did not record or note what things are. I really do enjoy the hobby and i have found a handful of guys selling hugher end frags cheap and I fully i tend to do the same. When they over grow my tank I will be selling everything for $5 frag regardless of what they are. I would also refuse to sell to anyone with intentions to flip it or to vendors.

I think the naming of corals has gotten out of hand and i have personally spoken to a vendor who told me they purposely give these corals fancy names for larger margins. If they dont know the name then they make it up.

Ive also spoken to the local reefers who sold me their frags for cheap and they have gotten backlash from other local hobbyist. I believe the corals are worth what they are worth for the buyer and the seller. No one is forced to buy anything so if you pay a lot for a coral then good for you that you are able to have funding and the seller.

I may be alone in my views but I just wanted to get it out there.

You're not alone in your views nor are you entirely mistaken. You do miss the key point however. I give people free frags all the time. I've given away loads of coral, used equipment, fish, and pretty much anything I no longer need or heck, they might like and I can live without (pretty much anything).

That's because I'm only friends with... Well... My friends. If my friends included fifty dudes a day standing in line for frags of that one cool coral I might find the process less amusing. If it consumed my entire week, call me crazy, but I'd want to get paid for doing the job.

Setting up a bunch of tanks so I can grow corals for $5 a pop is really not going to replace my lawyer paycheck.

Here's the part where I think folks keep losing the plot. There's a bunch of people running around the country insisting social justice requires that when I hire someone to dig a hole I have to pay them $15 an hour for doing something any able bodied human could probably do. I'm not going to argue the point. Who knows, perhaps they're right.

I'm fairly sure it's the same folks however who, when faced with a dude investing his own money in a business then working for years to develop the skills to deliver a product to market that the market actually wants, insist he make no more than $3 an hour doing it.

Call me crazy but shouldn't we want people to create value and derive a benefit from doing so?

Aren't the greedy folks here really the ones that want other people to work for them for peanuts keeping them stocked up with cheap corals?

 

[Pmj]

I don't think anyone is insinuating that people shouldn't be able to get a fair price for a product, especially if that product is rare or in demand. I think people's problem is some seller's taking advantage of newer aquarists by deception and general shadiness.

If I was to buy a car part that I was told was somehow special, only to later find out from a mechanic friend that it's a common part I could have paid 1/4 of the price for, my mechanic friend would probably call that person a scammer and his business a ripoff.

That business may have made slightly more money at first by doing that, but when people figure out they got ripped off, they will not shop there again. Their friend that knew better will not shop there, and others they tell will probably not shop there. Free market conditions should eventually correct this but saltwater livestock is not a necessity so it will probably take longer for a business to earn a bad rep than if they were ripping off for food, clothes, and basic services. I know I had some bad experiences, I once bought a single favia frag for $50 as I thought the hard corals must be worth much more. This is a $5 piece at a frag swap, so yeah, never going there again.

 

[fe342185]

You're not alone in your views nor are you entirely mistaken. You do miss the key point however. I give people free frags all the time. I've given away loads of coral, used equipment, fish, and pretty much anything I no longer need or heck, they might like and I can live without (pretty much anything).

That's because I'm only friends with... Well... My friends. If my friends included fifty dudes a day standing in line for frags of that one cool coral I might find the process less amusing. If it consumed my entire week, call me crazy, but I'd want to get paid for doing the job.

Setting up a bunch of tanks so I can grow corals for $5 a pop is really not going to replace my lawyer paycheck.

Here's the part where I think folks keep losing the plot. There's a bunch of people running around the country insisting social justice requires that when I hire someone to dig a hole I have to pay them $15 an hour for doing something any able bodied human could probably do. I'm not going to argue the point. Who knows, perhaps they're right.

I'm fairly sure it's the same folks however who, when faced with a dude investing his own money in a business then working for years to develop the skills to deliver a product to market that the market actually wants, insist he make no more than $3 an hour doing it.

Call me crazy but shouldn't we want people to create value and derive a benefit from doing so?

Aren't the greedy folks here really the ones that want other people to work for them for peanuts keeping them stocked up with cheap corals?

I stand corrected. I too give away corals and hardware to friends. I have recently offered hardware that i can sell to friends of the hobby. I look at things differently where i feel that if their tanks do well then its insurance that in the event of a catastrophic failure I would be able to rebuild at minimal cost. I can restock from their tanks.

I recently purchased 2 clams, a hammer and frogspawn 5", 6 acan 3" colonies, mushrooms and snails from a local reefer. He wanted $130. I offered more but he refused. To me it was worth more. I hope to return the favor one day. He said he was offered more by people who was going to chop it up. Just following suit.

 

[Servillius]

I don't think anyone is insinuating that people shouldn't be able to get a fair price for a product, especially if that product is rare or in demand. I think people's problem is some seller's taking advantage of newer aquarists by deception and general shadiness.

If I was to buy a car part that I was told was somehow special, only to later find out from a mechanic friend that it's a common part I could have paid 1/4 of the price for, my mechanic friend would probably call that person a scammer and his business a ripoff.

That business may have made slightly more money at first by doing that, but when people figure out they got ripped off, they will not shop there again. Their friend that knew better will not shop there, and others they tell will probably not shop there. Free market conditions should eventually correct this but saltwater livestock is not a necessity so it will probably take longer for a business to earn a bad rep than if they were ripping off for food, clothes, and basic services. I know I had some bad experiences, I once bought a single favia frag for $50 as I thought the hard corals must be worth much more. This is a $5 piece at a frag swap, so yeah, never going there again.

I totally agree with everything you say here. If this were really all people were saying then there would be no argument. If you look through the thread however there is a clear implication this is a great business strategy and that ripping people off is what the business has become. Note the title of the thread is not "On some occasions some people price corals stupidly."

Theres a lot of blather about greed as if truly good people are regressive, controlling, and sclerotic while anyone that makes folks happy for anything other than a negative return to themselves is just minutes away from two buckets of Hitler comparisons.

Yes, there are some people who are crooks. They exploit the uninformed for their benefit. They then have to move on looking for more uninformed folk because the average person doesn't stay uninformed forever. Those folks are not representative of the industry or particularly successful. Accusing a lot of decent people running business of mendacity because you don't want to pay their prices is not fair to good folks. If we took the complaints seriously and did what the complainers asked, we'd all be staring at tanks full of camel shrimp and sand dollars and dreaming of the day we could go catch our own clownfish.

 

[Servillius]

I stand corrected. I too give away corals and hardware to friends. I have recently offered hardware that i can sell to friends of the hobby. I look at things differently where i feel that if their tanks do well then its insurance that in the event of a catastrophic failure I would be able to rebuild at minimal cost. I can restock from their tanks.

I recently purchased 2 clams, a hammer and frogspawn 5", 6 acan 3" colonies, mushrooms and snails from a local reefer. He wanted $130. I offered more but he refused. To me it was worth more. I hope to return the favor one day. He said he was offered more by people who was going to chop it up. Just following suit.

I love this hobby. When a friend gets excited at some frag I enjoy their joy way more than I think they could enjoy the frag.

 

[d-man]

Naming every coral is rediculous. So im thinking about getting a few transhipments and naming them all. Since they are all maricultured, they won't have been named yet, oh wait, how bout their scientific name?!
No, I'll give them names like Dmans douche Mille, or Dmans Dunkin donuts. Whatever I name it, I'll charge $200 a frag, cuz it has a name.
That's the rediculous part, not the price(which I still think is crazy) but the fact that everything gets named now.

 

[Servillius]

Naming every coral is rediculous. So im thinking about getting a few transhipments and naming them all. Since they are all maricultured, they won't have been named yet, oh wait, how bout their scientific name?!
No, I'll give them names like Dmans douche Mille, or Dmans Dunkin donuts. Whatever I name it, I'll charge $200 a frag, cuz it has a name.
That's the rediculous part, not the price(which I still think is crazy) but the fact that everything gets named now.

Let me offer a suggestion as to why naming persists. It is convenient and easy and it has the thrill of insider jargon that goes with it. Granted there are some silly names and silly namers, but I don't think they individually persist or matter much in the long run.

Some names or just really functional and they're the most persistent names around. Instead of saying red and blue, we say Superman. Granted we could say red and blue, but Superman is more interesting. Same with poker star or fire and ice. They're just ways of talking about the coral that convey information a bit more efficiently but at the cost of it being jargon. Folks in all hobbies like jargon. In the work world I dislike jargon (lawyer words for instance) because its intentionally exclusionary. In a hobby, meh. Theres an element of fun that comes with feeling like an insider.

The next type of names are the ones that convey provenance. This is a frag of the "original" purple monster or whatever. Some of these names are functional and persistent and others aren't. If you find a coral with a unique combination of colors and growth forms and you name it and market it the name may well stick. If however you find a coral that looks an awful lot like something with an established name, you're not likely to get very far with your name. Sometimes, like anything else with collectors, the provenance can result in a price that is higher than the thing would otherwise command. Maybe the fact that its from one line of corals means it grows better or has better color or is just an interesting factoid about it. This kind of name is telling you something about the coral. These do get used incorrectly or dishonestly at times but more often than not I don't think its malice.

Then there is the vast undifferentiated mass of names. Some sites have hundreds of corals and they've named each colony. Thats nice for them. Thank you for making this all slightly more interesting to look at and identify but it really just amounts to mere puffery. Sure, its not the strict, literal truth without embellishment, but its the reefing equivalent of telling you my beer tastes better. Maybe - I'll decide for myself.

Thats the point though. Some of the named corals on those sites are $200. Others are $50. If naming was the reason he could charge $200 then why only charge $50 for the rest? Sellers may overvalue their stuff - its a natural human tendency. Maybe a seller wishes his price colony were the stuff of legends. He sure as heck doesn't think everything is. Thats why there are price variations. By definition half (and possibly more) the stuff out there is priced too high. Slapping a name on it is only a small part of the calculus.

I bought a really pricey chalice frag a few weeks back. It had 5 distinct colors in it and they were each really vibrant. Amazing coral that I'm looking forward to seeing as a colony. We negotiated for ten minutes before I bought it. Once the deal was done he told me "oh, by the way, I named it X." Who knows, if enough of us get frags out there, the name may stick. I certainly didn't pay for the name however. If it proves as pretty as it looks like it could be though, knowing your frag came from this original may actually be important - it may mean its colors are more vibrant than the next guys frag. I wouldn't sell a coral, but you get the point.

 

[Reef Ruler]

You're not alone in your views nor are you entirely mistaken. You do miss the key point however. I give people free frags all the time. I've given away loads of coral, used equipment, fish, and pretty much anything I no longer need or heck, they might like and I can live without (pretty much anything).

That's because I'm only friends with... Well... My friends. If my friends included fifty dudes a day standing in line for frags of that one cool coral I might find the process less amusing. If it consumed my entire week, call me crazy, but I'd want to get paid for doing the job.

Setting up a bunch of tanks so I can grow corals for $5 a pop is really not going to replace my lawyer paycheck.

Here's the part where I think folks keep losing the plot. There's a bunch of people running around the country insisting social justice requires that when I hire someone to dig a hole I have to pay them $15 an hour for doing something any able bodied human could probably do. I'm not going to argue the point. Who knows, perhaps they're right.

I'm fairly sure it's the same folks however who, when faced with a dude investing his own money in a business then working for years to develop the skills to deliver a product to market that the market actually wants, insist he make no more than $3 an hour doing it.

Call me crazy but shouldn't we want people to create value and derive a benefit from doing so?

Aren't the greedy folks here really the ones that want other people to work for them for peanuts keeping them stocked up with cheap corals?

This is an awesome post. Love it.

 

[kozmic]

This is an awesome post. Love it.

Yeah... I agree...

They must be putting something in the water in Houston... I think they call it, "logic" and "reason".

 

[Servillius]

Yeah... I agree...

They must be putting something in the water in Houston... I think they call it, "logic" and "reason".

If you've been watching the news it turns out they've been putting a lot more water too...

 

[itz frank]

You're not alone in your views nor are you entirely mistaken. You do miss the key point however. I give people free frags all the time. I've given away loads of coral, used equipment, fish, and pretty much anything I no longer need or heck, they might like and I can live without (pretty much anything).

That's because I'm only friends with... Well... My friends. If my friends included fifty dudes a day standing in line for frags of that one cool coral I might find the process less amusing. If it consumed my entire week, call me crazy, but I'd want to get paid for doing the job.

Setting up a bunch of tanks so I can grow corals for $5 a pop is really not going to replace my lawyer paycheck.

Here's the part where I think folks keep losing the plot. There's a bunch of people running around the country insisting social justice requires that when I hire someone to dig a hole I have to pay them $15 an hour for doing something any able bodied human could probably do. I'm not going to argue the point. Who knows, perhaps they're right.

I'm fairly sure it's the same folks however who, when faced with a dude investing his own money in a business then working for years to develop the skills to deliver a product to market that the market actually wants, insist he make no more than $3 an hour doing it.

Call me crazy but shouldn't we want people to create value and derive a benefit from doing so?

Aren't the greedy folks here really the ones that want other people to work for them for peanuts keeping them stocked up with cheap corals?

It's called capitalism or supply and demand. Easy math. You guys see it all the time. Someone posts corals online for a frag pack of $300. It doesn't sell. Weeks go by. Price gets cut. Cut. Cut. Cut. Closed.

Things are worth what people are willing to pay for it. If someone pays $200/polyp.. it's worth that. If you won't. It's not... to you.

And that's why there's 10 pages of this with no conclusion. Everything is worth something to someone. If you can get it, why not? My problem becomes these over edited photos that show acros glowing yellow/red/orange and have a completely bleached plug. Lying about the colors to bring profit isn't selling. It's lying.

I wouldn't spend $200/polyp and I won't find myself spending $100/frag for an acro but that doesn't mean someone shouldn't try to get to that if it's worth it.

Between this and the Gem tang post, it's nothing but a bunch of cry babies.

I refuse to spend it myself. But you can't hate people for turning a profit. It's not like ONE GUY has every coral known to man and he's forcing us to by them at inflated prices. People are paying for the corals from multiple vendors and people here. End of story. They're worth what people will pay and people are paying.

 

[sde1500]

It's called capitalism or supply and demand. Easy math. You guys see it all the time. Someone posts corals online for a frag pack of $300. It doesn't sell. Weeks go by. Price gets cut. Cut. Cut. Cut. Closed.

haha careful now, some don't like it being called "supply and demand". Not sure why though.

 

[Reef Frog]

This naming business isn't unique to corals or zoanthids. In the flower & vegetable world, new varieties, slightly modified varieties or genetic hybrids are often given names. This has been going on for over a century. It's often a derivative of a name of the breeder's relative, but usually it's a descriptive name like "moon beam" or "firecracker" or whatever.

It often becomes associated with advantageous traits that may or may not be unique to the original founding species. I think it helps the consumer remember the the special characteristics (drought tolerant, blooms all summer, fungus resistant etc), which was touched on in the post above.

In almost all cases they are priced in the same ball park as older varieties on the market. But I think the name allows it to take market share at nurseries & garden centers. It's interesting to note that many breeders of these special varieties have a note on the tag "forbidding asexual propagation" meaning cuttings. I've always wondered if this has been tested in court. This obviously doesn't apply to the coral word because I don't think there have been any hybridization done successfully by coral propagators on a commercial scale.

Anyway I agree the names are silly, and I am sure a few dummies have been lured into paying stupid high prices for something quite common, but agree the names also play a role in describing and making a variant memorable. But it's no big deal for me.

Now let's talk about the paint world where "Caribbean Ocean Mist Sea Foam" actually means "Light Green"..... Now that drives me crazy.

 

[dkeller_nc]

This naming business isn't unique to corals or zoanthids. In the flower & vegetable world, new varieties, slightly modified varieties or genetic hybrids are often given names. This has been going on for over a century.

Much longer than that, actually.

I do agree that it's a bit disingenuous to suggest that there's no underlying supply and demand with respect to what corals (and everything else) sell or don't sell for.

But there's more to it than that. Anyone with some education in marketing will tell you that many human nature (or illogical, if you will) factors go into supply and demand. Creating an air of exclusivity when it comes to certain products can exponentially drive sales where the underlying product really isn't unique, rare, or otherwise advantageous over competing products. In my view, this is the primary purpose of naming a coral "snazzleberry puckerbuss", not establishing an easy to remember pseudonym used to trace lineage. In fact, the whole concept of tracing lineage in a coral is pretty ridiculous, in my view.

Of course, the blame for the existence of such ridiculous behavior is on us, the consumers, not the sellers. So it's therefore appropriate to (politely) sneer at aquarists that are overly enamored of a so-called "LE" coral and post a boast thread over the acquisition of the same. This is one case where "if you don't have anything nice to say, say nothing at all" may not be all that beneficial to the hobby as a whole and to newbs in particular.

 

[kozmic]

If you've been watching the news...

'Ahem, I guess you didn't notice my location? (lol)

 

[sde1500]

Much longer than that, actually.

I do agree that it's a bit disingenuous to suggest that there's no underlying supply and demand with respect to what corals (and everything else) sell or don't sell for.

But there's more to it than that. Anyone with some education in marketing will tell you that many human nature (or illogical, if you will) factors go into supply and demand. Creating an air of exclusivity when it comes to certain products can exponentially drive sales where the underlying product really isn't unique, rare, or otherwise advantageous over competing products. In my view, this is the primary purpose of naming a coral "snazzleberry puckerbuss", not establishing an easy to remember pseudonym used to trace lineage. In fact, the whole concept of tracing lineage in a coral is pretty ridiculous, in my view.

Of course, the blame for the existence of such ridiculous behavior is on us, the consumers, not the sellers. So it's therefore appropriate to (politely) sneer at aquarists that are overly enamored of a so-called "LE" coral and post a boast thread over the acquisition of the same. This is one case where "if you don't have anything nice to say, say nothing at all" may not be all that beneficial to the hobby as a whole and to newbs in particular.

I absolutely agree. A post here earlier I think mentioned an LFS that said if they try and sell a rock of purple mushrooms it won't sell well, but if they attach a name, they can charge way more. That's pure idiocy. And no sellers fault, that's 100% on the buyer. I don't and won't buy anything just because it has a name. But I will know certain names of corals I want and look for them. Went to a frag swap and wanted some rasta and utter chaos zoas, found them, found a price I felt was agreeable, and bought them. Simple as that, names helped to find them, but it was the color I was after. And yea, I don't care if 10 tanks ago they were in Tyree's tank.