Crested gecko prices/ morphs/ photos please?

[MissCat]

I am thoroughly confused about crested gecko prices.

One shop near me sells cresties at £45 each, another one (only 5 mins down the road from teh first) sells them at £90.

On the classifieds they seem to be selling at anywhere between £45 to £170! I'm noticing that babies and males seem to be the lower end of the price scale, but older females and "morphs" at the higher end of the price scale.

I don't understand all the different morphs or their names, the only one's I could point out as being a morph are the dalmation ones and the red ones lol. I doubt I could even point out a "normal" among a load of morphs (apart from the two I can identify).

Soooo...

Can someone please explain why the prices differ so much and can someone please please please post some pictures of different morphs, explaining what makes them a morph (also a "normal" too lol).

Does lack of tail make any difference to what a price should be?

Could someone also explain what morphs are considered to be "high price" or rare morphs?

No idea what flavour my crestie is, but I'm getting another one from Wohic and i'd also like to expand my crestie collection futher some day; I don't want to be utterly clueless when I do, nor do I want to end up being ripped off by paying £170 for one that does not deserve that price tag!

many thanks

[Crestie Chris]

These threads may be of use:
The Evaluation Process. - The Pangea Forums - Crested Geckos & More
Crested Gecko Morph Guide - Gecko Resource Forums

Prices tend to differ as higher end morphs are usually harder to achieve/ produce as crested geckos are polymorphic, you could put together two full pinstripes and get a plain dalmation. They are not also TSD (temp sex dependent) so the prices of females are a lot higher than that of males.

Some of the most in demand morphs (in the UK) at the moment are pinstripes (especially red ones), Creamsicles, and red harleys

I hope this answers most of your questions

Chris

[iona_gecko]

best off googling for morphs - there are loads, with some it depends on the person as to what morph something is too - the line where a flame becomes a harley goes a lot on personal opinion.

The more expensive morphs are 'designer morphs' - if you have a look on acreptiles/ciliatus.com (antony caponetto) there are pics and descriptions of designer morphs there

Females are more expensive because they aren't as readily available as males - breeders tend to hang onto them to use in their own breeding programmes once they're mature, so when it comes to selling them they still command a decent price. Males are cheaper for the same reason - they're easily available because unless the breeder has a project waiting for that male they get sold...also people will buy unsexed juvies in the hope of getting a female, if they turn out male they'll likely sell the male and try again...you can pick up some really nice males (there was a harley pinner a while back £90) whereas even a plain female will fetch a higher price.

with morphs they all have names, no 'normals' as such, the equivalent to a 'normal' would be the 'patternless' - with a fairly common colour like buckskin for eg..

the repashy site Crested Gecko Morph Guide - Gecko Resource Forums covers most of it

[MissCat]

Ah thank you, those links certainly clears some of that up for me