KittyCatS! Community Forum

Hello everyone I have a question, I am new to selling kitties. And I have 3 New Baby Kitties! I'm not quite sure how to price them though. Please help i'd really appreciate it here is their info:


? New Born Kitten

Fur: Russian - Black
Eyes: Shamrock (Shape: Curious | Pupil: Big)
Shade: Natural
Tail: Curious
Ears: Mysterious
Whiskers: Silver (Shape: Mysterious)
Size: Normal

Version: 1.33
Owner: twinklelicious Resident
ID: a5cff3e6-5607-1eaa-510d-070529af827d






? New Born Kitten

Fur: Ocicat - Tawny
Eyes: Tapestry Reef (Shape: Mysterious | Pupil: Big)
Shade: Glitter
Tail: Genesis
Ears: Soft Fold
Whiskers: White (Shape: Guitar)
Size: Normal

Version: 1.39
Owner: twinklelicious Resident
ID: 7bc3db37-2242-2d46-aaf2-47c46f6aa68





? New Born Kitten

Fur: Burmese - Flame
Eyes: Twilight (Shape: Mysterious | Pupil: Small)
Shade: Natural
Tail: Genesis
Ears: Genesis
Whiskers: Silver (Shape: Guitar)
Size: Normal

Version: 1.42
Owner: twinklelicious Resident
ID: ca0ab134-e643-f968-e6b6-f2fef82620f9


Thanks so much in advance!!!

There are pricing tools out there. They generally work by looking at how many starter or Genesis traits there are, and also by taking account of new or newer traits. In that line up you have there, the one thing that Really Stands Out is that the 3rd kitty has Twilight eyes. That is a brand new eye and worth some money in and of itself no matter what other traits the kitty has. How much is it worth? Well... this is one reason why people attend auctions - to see what the going rate is for the new traits.

But very basics, you first need to be able to identify what is a gen trait. A totally Gen trait list looks like:
Fur: Genesis (these come in Diamond, Coco, Flame, Domino, and Smokey)
Eye: Gensis (various types)
Eye shape: Curious
Pupil size: Big
Shade: natural
Tail: Genesis
Ears: Genesis
Whiskers: Silver
Whisker shape: guitar

All of this information is available in various places, Tad's wiki, Saga's Traits Talk and other places which are linked here on the board.

Pricing has changed over the span of the KittyCats's existence. Some people used to say 100L per non-Gen trait, or even 50L per non-Gen trait. It's more fluid than that, and depends a lot on how long the trait has existed, is it rare either through newness or retirement, and how recessive is it. (Though very recessive cats are often so common now that they can sometimes be gotten more cheaply than cats with more unusual traits, because so many people are breeding them.)

But another crucial factor is something we can't see here (and why people post pedigrees) - all of the cats have not only shown traits, but hidden traits from their parents. A cat with good hiddens can be worth vastly more money than a cat with Exactly the Same shown traits, but with ... let us say... boring hiddens. Learning how to read a pedigree and figure out what the hiddens are (and sometimes you just can't know until you breed them) is a large part of the game that KittyCats is.

That's not a complete answer, I know. But it's a start.

The best way to determine a price is to go shopping. Look at what others are charging, talk to people.

I would suggest talking to a few auctioneers. They, at least, should have some idea as to what is selling for what under the current market conditions.

Personally, I dislike the idea of a scripted price-guesser. They represent only one person's view. They're outdated the moment you purchase them. And so many of them are not fair pricing tools but, rather, the political expression of what that one person wished were true, last year, when they wrote it.

indeed, the pricing huds and tools seem more a way to get people to charge higher prices than the current market will support in order to hopefully get the lower priced cats out of the market than anything else.

What's a cat worth? Just think what you'd pay for it if you were looking to buy one. If anything's a fair price, that is...

Looking at markets, seeing what the going rates are, both lower and upper of course, can help.

Remember, when shopping, the prices you see on cats are the asking price they HAVE NOT sold for! (If it sold, you would not see the cat or price.)

true, but a big reason for cats selling slowly is the massive supply.
I can be looking for a specific cat, and buy it for 500L$ because I think that's fair only to have missed 10 of practically the same cat for 300L$ somewhere else that I didn't visit yet.

These things are all true. But it is also true that sometimes a cat does have to wait for the right buyer. In this way, I think KittyCatS markets are a lot like fleamarkets or antique stalls - filled with piles of goods that do have a certain intrinsic worth mixed with old junk (sorry) and all of it fun to browse through. Something like Depression Glass does have a recommended book value. A dealer may sell it for more or less, but keeps the book value in mind. Not everybody is in the market for Depression Glass, but ideally a dealer does not price it to sell to any old random passer-by for quick sale.

And so the pricing of cats can be somewhat emotional. I have a line of Bengal Charcoals. They don't sell very quickly (versus Bengal Blacks) but I still maintain that the fur is great and the cats quite handsome. I am not going to bend over backwards to discount them. I know it's a niche line. But I'll wait for the right buyer.

The over-supply of cats on the grid is a large problem for the markets.

As someone who is newer to KittyCats, I go to auctions and different markets looking at the pricing of cats with similar traits/features. What I've found is that there is a huge difference in price, and sometimes the prices can be higher at one marketplace while lower at another. I haven't had a cat I've sold that I feel is going to bring in a HUGE amount of linden, so I generally price them lower to keep them moving, but also because I think I have some older traits that are more common. I think I'm selling to the person who likes how the cat looks versus what's hidden (as most of mine are 8T or 9T), so I value my cats a bit lower than what others may do who have a huge variety of cats and traits to sell. I also look at the bidboards in locations as sometimes there are "bargain" prices sometimes, so I will price mine around the final bid price.

Great to see all these thoughtful and really helpful responses. Kitty pricing never does seem to get easier (at least for me) because it changes so much.

And it's also true, what Tad said about the cats you see with prices on them not yet having been sold. That doesn't mean they're overpriced though -- they may just not have been seen much, yet. Most of us do our best to give a fair valuation that reflects how eager we are to get the kitten a new home. But the difficulty of shopping (the rezzing time, the crashing time) also reduces the odds of "Cat X" being located by "Shopper-Searching-for-Cat-X", even if "Cat X" is exactly the right price.

So I really agree with what Jwenting said about ... being willing to buy the 11th cat for 500L knowing that perhaps somewhere, in the vastness, there might be 10 similar ones priced at 300L -- it could take hours to find them, and then you'd risk forgetting where the 11th cat was if that turned out to be your choice.

You just find out some of them were either correctly-priced or under-priced if they vanish too quickly. The big pink cat for 8K at least maybe will still be available when its competitor, the 4k big pink cat, is long gone Big cats do seem to sell quickly once the price reaches a "reasonable" level -- probably because they are big and billboard-like, and people see them. People don't see the teacups as well ...

What Ivy said in the second post on this thread -- well said, and it's pretty much what I try to tell people who ask how to price kitties -- and everyone's added observations are really helpful here.