Pricing Bonsai- how are prices determined?

NamesakE

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I've been wondering how bonsai trees are really priced? It seems somewhat capricious. Of course I get that older, better styled, more unique etc..equals more expensive but how exactly are these prices determined? Why would a 50 year old formal upright pine be $10,000 and not $5,000 or $20,000? Some of the prices I've seen online seem way out of proportion for the trees. Is it just me?
 

Adair M

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On high end trees, the prices are based upon comps. That is, what other “similar” trees have recently sold for.

But... we’re talking about unique specimens. The price is set by the two parties... what someone is willing to pay, and what the other party is willing to accept.
 

Zach Smith

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Consider the mallsai Chinese elms shaped in the "S" curve and sold in big box stores and through the florist network. What do they go for? $15 a pop? These trees are priced according to the cost of mass production. There are vast growing areas where thousands upon thousands are grown, shaped, then potted and transported for sale in the U.S. and elsewhere. They are probably sold at wholesale for $4-6 apiece, then marked up for retail sale. Pretty easy to figure.

When you leave the mass-market produced trees behind, then you have to consider three basic factors: age, size and quality. Older trees tend to go for more, larger trees tend to go for more, and the ethereal quality factor is where things can become hard to understand. If you worked on a large bonsai for 30 years, and it was well designed and maintained, and you had commissioned a pot for it that perfectly complemented the tree, what would you ask for it? And then consider that if you had a large bonsai that had been worked on by say Ben Oki or John Naka for 30 years, would you ask even more for it? I'd guess so.

In the end, a tree is worth what someone will pay for it. If the $10,000 upright pine doesn't sell for $10,000, it wasn't worth that price. If it sells, it was worth at least $10,000.
 

Wires_Guy_wires

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I think Ryan Neil once said something like this: Imagine a tree that has been in a pot for 40 years. It was watered every day. That's 365 minutes a year and roughly six hours of maintenance. 12 hours of work a year. Times 40 years, times the hourly wage. Makes at least 7,5K dollar in manual labor.
Put it in a 500 dollar pot and take insecticides, fungicides, wire, tools, garden space and soil into account, for 40 years, and you're close to 10K in expenses. It doesn't even have to be a good or pretty tree, it's just what kind of money goes into a tree that old.

Some nursery trees have been in a pot for decades and sell for 20 bucks. But that's regular nurseries, not bonsai. Still, I think it's a steal when you consider how much labor went into keeping a potted tree alive for so long.

I agree with the rest that it depends a whole lot on what people ask for it and what people are willing to spend.
 

sorce

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Some of the prices I've seen online seem way out of proportion for the trees. Is it just me?

Won't know till you post em! Post em!

Imagine all the saps that spend $15 on a garbage ficus at Walmart.

There HAS to be some really foolish saps spending $5-10k on shitty trees.

Those are the folks making sellers think those prices are worth it.
That situation also keeps our market down, wrong and down.
Since there is actually few good trees to go out and just buy.

(Enter folks with a different definition of "good".)

Sorce
 

Bonsai Nut

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For most bonsai that sells to the general public, I believe there is an ignorance factor where beginner trees tend to sell for higher prices (and higher profit margins) relative to the work that went into them. Like it or not, this is the largest segment of the industry in terms of numbers of trees, revenues, and profits. For many bonsai nurseries and retailers, this is their bread and butter - what pays the bills.

Then there is a middle market, where you can buy pre-bonsai or young bonsai for not too much money... either because they require a lot of additional development work, or a lot more age, or they come out of landscape or the wild and don't have a ton of labor invested in them. These trees will either not come with pots, or else they will be in cheap pots.

And then there is the upper market, for completed bonsai, often in expensive pots. In many cases these trees, though expensive in an absolute sense, will sell at break-even, or perhaps below break-even, relative to the time and labor invested. How many times do we see people sell trees that they have owned and developed for 10 years... for the same price they paid for them, or only slightly more?

In my personal opinion, if you want to make your bonsai $ go the farthest, you pay up for good pre-bonsai material, and then you pay up to have an expert help you with the initial styling. You handle all the tasks related to detailed styling, care and maintenance.
 
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Forsoothe!

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Yes, the several price ranges reflect entirely different markets, but what they have in common is the basic "how many buyers exist in a given range verses how much product is available". There's a whole bunch of both sides of the equation in the mallsai market and not much discrimination. Sellers only handle what moves fast in their market, and the buyers are only interested in low prices.

In the highest price connoisseurs' market there's not much that comes to the open market. Most often, a dealer is consulted, he shops it around among his clients, and other dealers if he has to, and only people who can afford the very best ever see those goods. High prices in this market are not deterrents. Rich people would almost prefer to tell their friends that they paid big bucks for their possessions, rather than miss the opportunity to own something special. There's always a willingness to pay some price that is too small to calculate as a percentage of your own net worth. A person with $10,000,000 net worth doesn't need to differentiate between a $100,000 or $125,000 car, he just chooses what he wants, but he likes the idea of his neighbor mentally calculating how much his car costs when he drives by. He is buying prestige, and getting it to some extent.

The middle market is where we see real disjointed pricing. People skilled in bonsai to a greater or lesser extent buying from each other. For the most part neither is well-practiced in pricing goods & services. It can cost $20 plus $15 shipping for a sapling of an exotic species that is not locally available. It's not worth $10, but it's a question of do you want it or not? Scale that to the Ebay model of a 5 year old nursery plant with perfunctory training in a bonsai pot and again not locally available. Do you want it or not? And there's not a lot of people in bonsai anyway, so the market is small to begin with. Many people on this forum are 200 miles from anyone at all that does bonsai. No sellers or buyers. It gets worse. Trees worked by us, the amateurs, are often pretty nice after 10 years or so, but how many real buyers out there will pay more than a couple hundred for anything? Not many, as we know from our club auctions where there is often very good deals and above $200 and very few real bidders. A $35 nursery tree in a $50 pot tended for 10 years for $10/yr should be cheap at $200 assuming it was appealing. There are very few buyers even on this forum for $500 trees, and they are hard to ship because they are heavy and resist packaging for rough treatment, so adding 25% for packaging, shipping & insurance is even on the low side.

I sell my surplus trees to a local dealer one mixed load at a time. I give him a bunch of trees, he takes them and the next time we see each other at a meeting he gives me money. I don't ask how much for the individual trees. They are trees that I don't like as much as others and have too many to care for properly, so I have to reduce the herd and I hate auctions. Nothing is worse than working on tree for 5 years and seeing it go for the price of the pot when the number of interested bidders is low. I would rather sell it to someone who will give me some percentage of the market price. He knows what he can get for it in his shop and treats me as a supplier. It works for me. I buy at auctions, happily.
 
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Man, I think one could teach a full semester of economics concepts solely using the examples brought up in this thread. You don't really notice there are some really smart people on this forum while we are all discussing soil mixes, pot choices, etc.

Myself, I have little to add to this great discussion. I just wanted to point that out.
 

Brian Van Fleet

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I think Ryan Neil once said something like this: Imagine a tree that has been in a pot for 40 years. It was watered every day. That's 365 minutes a year and roughly six hours of maintenance. 12 hours of work a year. Times 40 years, times the hourly wage. Makes at least 7,5K dollar in manual labor.
Put it in a 500 dollar pot and take insecticides, fungicides, wire, tools, garden space and soil into account, for 40 years, and you're close to 10K in expenses. It doesn't even have to be a good or pretty tree, it's just what kind of money goes into a tree that old.

Some nursery trees have been in a pot for decades and sell for 20 bucks. But that's regular nurseries, not bonsai. Still, I think it's a steal when you consider how much labor went into keeping a potted tree alive for so long.

I agree with the rest that it depends a whole lot on what people ask for it and what people are willing to spend.
And that’s why Bill Valavanis says the best way to make $1m in bonsai is to start with $2m.😜
 

NamesakE

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Won't know till you post em! Post em!

Imagine all the saps that spend $15 on a garbage ficus at Walmart.

There HAS to be some really foolish saps spending $5-10k on shitty trees.

Those are the folks making sellers think those prices are worth it.
That situation also keeps our market down, wrong and down.
Since there is actually few good trees to go out and just buy.

(Enter folks with a different definition of "good".)

Sorce
 

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NamesakE

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This was the tree that inspired my original question. Found it while perusing Brussels. I was looking at other sites as well but this definitely stuck out. Most of what I was looking at was what was called pre-bonsaied and seemed out of line with what they looked liked as far as quality but maybe (really probably) there's something I don't get yet since I just started this hobby about two years ago. As a side note I've found I really like yamadori! I have a couple beech trees, a hornbeam, and a sugar maple (I know sugar maples tend not to make great trees... now. Didn't know that when I collected them! ) I collected from my property in northern Michigan that are in their third growing season this year and I'm excited to see what I can do with them. Thanks to everyone for the replies. I really appreciate the help!
 

Bonsai Nut

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I have often said that when you buy bonsai you are buying time :)

It can be time in terms of the age of the tree and its features, or time in terms of how much training went into the tree to get it to look the way it does. That is why some trees like a shohin Japanese black pine will often sell for a high price to a sophisticated market - while a bonsai beginner might look at the small tree and wonder why it is so expensive. Similarly, a beginner might think a big chunky piece of material out of a nursery might be worth a lot of money, but an experienced bonsai practitioner would pass... because they know how much work (time) would be required to make it look like something reasonable.
 

sorce

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Biggest problem with that tree is......

Someone will probably buy it someday!

It's a "corporate gift" to the highest degree.

Sorce
 

Forsoothe!

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Post # 10 tree is mostly a rock making the trunk look bigger than it is.
 

leatherback

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Unfortunately only one picture. Big trunk, 50 years old.
Might be a zero too many at the end, if you compare to the other specimen trees.


Certainly not a 16K tree for me.
 

Woocash

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I was going to start a new thread on the subject of pricing trees, but seeing as this one is so new, I was wondering...

How one would go about pricing collected material?

Obviously, it depends on what someone is willing to pay, but the only time taken is the scouting, collecting and aftercare and so really it comes down to what nature has provided.

I have been given access to a few places now with a combined total of more material than I could ever hope to keep for myself, so my plan is to sell some in the future. How do I go about valuing stock when there are so many factors involved? I don’t want to be greedy, but then again, I would like fair market value.

Also, how dramatically would a couple of years of maintenance and styling alter the price?
 

Zach Smith

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I was going to start a new thread on the subject of pricing trees, but seeing as this one is so new, I was wondering...

How one would go about pricing collected material?

Obviously, it depends on what someone is willing to pay, but the only time taken is the scouting, collecting and aftercare and so really it comes down to what nature has provided.

I have been given access to a few places now with a combined total of more material than I could ever hope to keep for myself, so my plan is to sell some in the future. How do I go about valuing stock when there are so many factors involved? I don’t want to be greedy, but then again, I would like fair market value.

Also, how dramatically would a couple of years of maintenance and styling alter the price?
The best way to start is to see what's already out there in your particular market. If someone is selling a tree of the same species and size, age and quality of yours for 100 euros, then you may want to price in that same range or perhaps a little less since you won't be a known quantity in the market.
 
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