Most valuable CP in the industry?

[dionae]

To me....cephs and helis are the most valuable. Just cus I like the look of them so much. Maybe not to the CP community but to me they're the most valuable.

 

[RSS]

I watch Ceph prices on E-bay alot and they have definetly been dropping like a rock over the last year. Hummers now are only about 1.5X typicals, they used to be 6-10X. Now the other odd non registered possible cultivars are getting the 10+X dollars but they are very rare and hard to find. Heli's are out pricing Ceph's by a long ways. You can easily pick up a Ceph for $25 if your willing to wait and watch the auctions. Good luck doing that with most Heli's.

If your looking for price by weight...well Utric's would take that prize.

My favorite CP is a weed and I'd pay alot if I had to replace it, lucky for me I can't kill it...I've tried.

 

[Exo]

I've seen some EP hybrid nepenthes go for prices that would melt ones credit card just by looking at them!

 

[Clue]

The most valuable plant IMO is whatever you think it to be. Supply and demand, right? Edwardsiana can get high up there, sure, but it isn't worth so much to me because I don't really like eddy. The most expensive plant might not be the most valuable, either. Value can't really be measured in price anyways, unless spending loads of money means a plant is valuable.

But either way, people will fork out the money if they want a plant. Just look at how many people have jambans and rare Helis and Neps from Wistuba.

 

[mobile]

I think the situation might be a little different in the USA compared to Europe; however, Cephalotus are becoming quite common nowadays. Even the traditionally 'rare' clones such as 'Hummer's Giant' are quite common and thus the value has depreciated significantly. There are still a few exceptions, such as 'Eden Black'. Recently a couple of small examples (immature pitchers) of sister to Eden Black, aka "Tank Ceph 2" have sold for £123.88 and £255.00 on eBay UK but even this is relatively cheap for a rare clone. However, as others have mentioned, a plant should not be judged on its monitory value. Some 'rare' plants are also beautiful, such as 'Eden Black' but others are not that special and are simply expensive due to there rarity. Personally, I don't derive any more pleasure from my 'Hummer's Giant' than I do from my mature 'typical' Cephalotus but size for size I know which one would fetch the highest selling price.

 

[seedjar]

As Steve already commented - not really. They are nice plants and are grown & appreciated by a significant number of CP growers, but as an investment, their 'mania-phase' peaked a few years ago and their prices continue to plummet.

I think another factor is that there has been a lot of progress in Cephalotus cultivation techniques. When I got into the hobby people treated Cephs like they were made of glass. Only a few advanced growers I came across were adept with the genus. Individuals like WildBill were still aggregating the experiences of others and evaluating different clones. These days people are far more adventurous and even novices are reporting great successes. Cephs are established in people's collections and there's less demand for them commercially.
Nepenthes, on the other hand, have been well-known in conservatories for over a century. People are still working to pin down all of their habits and cultural preferences; it's a far more diverse genus so different species are bound to have different quirks and demands. The fact that new species and natural hybrids are being discovered all the time, and that there is a market for complex artificial hybrids akin to the orchid trade, drives a collector's habit to which Cephalotus doesn't really compare. It's slight hyperbole, but you could say that there's a higher rate of Nepenthes addiction.
And at the risk of sounding shallow, Nepenthes are big, and people like big things. A full-grown Cephalotus looks like a cryptic little lump next to a healthy juvenile N. x Miranda. While Cephs are really awesome, they don't really catch the eye of someone who doesn't know what they're looking for, unless they happen to get up real close. A mature Nepenthes is something that you could put in a conservatory as the centerpiece of an entire room.
~Joe

 

[mobile]

I find that my Heliamphora attract more interest from visitor to my house than Cephalotus. If enough interest is shown I go into details of their natural habitat and that generally gets people even more intrigued. Newly discovered Heliamphora also initially sell for high prices; however, due to them being cultivated in-vitro in Europe, they become more common in a reasonably short period of time.