What's the most you have ever spent on a single tree? (finished or pre-bonsai or yamadori or raw stock)

What it the most you have ever spent on a single piece of material/tree? (results will be anonymous)

  • $10,000 or more

    Votes: 6 2.2%
  • $5,000 - $9,999

    Votes: 5 1.8%
  • $2,000 - $4,999

    Votes: 22 7.9%
  • $1,000 - $1,999

    Votes: 31 11.1%
  • $500 - $999

    Votes: 54 19.4%
  • $200 - $499

    Votes: 73 26.2%
  • Less than $200

    Votes: 88 31.5%

  • Total voters
    279
Yeah.. I find it a bit off-putting. When I see a tree I DO like, and I see such prices I never go and say, gee, lets offer 1/10 of the asking price, and I just keep scrolling. But maybe there are people that do enter the challenge there. But I am a cheapskate and feel many trees are sold way over reasonable prices :)
This is how I feel about 90% of facebook bonsai auctions. What's crazy is most of those trees sell, even if they are just a 1" nursery stock tree that has been wired to look like a christmas tree and has no taper.
 
This is how I feel about 90% of facebook bonsai auctions. What's crazy is most of those trees sell, even if they are just a 1" nursery stock tree that has been wired to look like a christmas tree and has no taper.
I know we all agree that people can try to sell however they wish... and if they get a buyer good for them! However I am also in this camp. Any time I sell anything at auction, I start with a $1 bid and no reserve. I get a lot of interest in the auction, numerous bidders, and at the end of the day feel that it is the best way to determine true market value. At least - it works for me!
 
When I go looking for a tree, I'm looking for around 200-400. I've found that's sweet spot for fun material to work on, and so that I also don't have an issue selling at cost if I want to move on from it and get something else. My collection has gotten to the point where I don't spend my own money anymore, just move one tree and get another :).

Spent a lot of money on really cheap trees early, only to realize I didn't have the space to watch them "thicken" in a pot for 10 years living in an apartment.
This is a good strategy.

In regards to the FB auctions, I haven't personally done any business in those auctions to date. Generally just glance over them.
 
So what conclusions can we draw? The way the price bins were posed was different which affects the granularity, but whatever

~90% of bonsai people will tap out at $500 for pots, a plurality of folks ~30% will not pay more than $100 for a pot. Potters: 2/3 of the market is $100-500 and 1/3 is <$100.
Tree price is more flexible with 90% of people tapping out at ~$1-2k, ~60% of bonsai people will pay up to $250 -500

So $500 is a sort of magical psychological number for the majority in this hobby, the boundary between tell the wife or not.


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Am I correct that this is the same tree listed here for 18k?

Either there is an extra 0 on the ebay listing or the Dr is sitting back and having his own bag of popcorn!
 
In regards to the FB auctions, I haven't personally done any business in those auctions to date. Generally just glance over them.
I enjoy looking on there as well. See some cool material from time to time, albeit out of my price range.
 
So what conclusions can we draw? The way the price bins were posed was different which affects the granularity, but whatever

~90% of bonsai people will tap out at $500 for pots, a plurality of folks ~30% will not pay more than $100 for a pot. Potters: 2/3 of the market is $100-500 and 1/3 is <$100.
Tree price is more flexible with 90% of people tapping out at ~$1-2k, ~60% of bonsai people will pay up to $250 -500

So $500 is a sort of magical psychological number for the majority in this hobby, the boundary between tell the wife or not.


View attachment 526352
Honestly the real question here is what percentage of people who buy pots are

0) New dabblers
1) Casual Hobbyists
2) Serious Hobbyists
3) Casual Professionals
4) Serious Professionals
5) @IzzyG (Very serious collector)

If we really want to get into the weeds the graph would reflect that too.

Also, within these categories are sub categories of ‘spends all the money they shouldn’t but do because they love the item, very stiff budgeting, and lastly, have all the hard earned money and here to pump it into the economy (bless everyone’s hearts wherever they land).

In terms of pricing I like to aim for a couple notches below Ron Lang but a couple above imported seconds.

What Nao considers a $500 pot I would price at 700-1200. Ron Lang would have priced $2000+ (got a quote from someone who has asked him once for a 28” Pot! He asked Nao what he would charge and we thought $1400 would be reasonable back then)

For me personally, I like to offer a variety of price points to suit everyone, and I also price according to how much I liked what I made, and how it turned out in the firing. And bags and hats for those poor people you bonsai folks drag to shows with you. 😂 Maybe I should make some cute washi tape or swedish dish cloths. All affordable And below double digits. 😉
 
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Honestly the real question here is what percentage of people who buy pots are

0) New dabblers
1) Casual Hobbyists
2) Serious Hobbyists
3) Casual Professionals
4) Serious Professionals
5) @IzzyG (Very serious collector)

If we really want to get into the weeds the graph would reflect that too.

Also, within these categories are sub categories of ‘spends all the money they shouldn’t but do because they love the item, very stiff budgeting, and lastly, have all the hard earned money and here to pump it into the economy (bless everyone’s hearts wherever they land).

In terms of pricing I like to aim for a couple notches below Ron Lang but a couple above imported seconds.

What Nao considers a $500 pot I would price at 700-1200. Ron Lang would have priced $2000+ (got a quote from someone who has asked him once for a 28” Pot! He asked Nao what he would charge and we thought $1400 would be reasonable back then)

For me personally, I like to offer a variety of price points to suit everyone, and I also price according to how much I liked what I made, and how it turned out in the firing. And bags and hats for those poor people you bonsai folks drag to shows with you. 😂 Maybe I should make some cute washi tape or swedish dish cloths. All affordable And below double digits. 😉
In some part of the world there is the Category 6 - People with lots of money and consider bonsai as status symbols. These will buy bonsai at eye popping prices and then hire people to care for the bonsai. These people actually have little passion for bonsai. To these people buying bonsai and hire a keeper is no different than buying Ferrari and hire a mechanic. I know a few of these people in Asia.
 
In some part of the world there is the Category 6 - People with lots of money and consider bonsai as status symbols. These will buy bonsai at eye popping prices and then hire people to care for the bonsai. These people actually have little passion for bonsai. To these people buying bonsai and hire a keeper is no different than buying Ferrari and hire a mechanic. I know a few of these people in Asia.
I believe it. That category exists here in the states too, some of the local bonsai pros care for client’s trees. In Japan too - the pros will enter their client’s trees in the Kokufu.
 
50 quid each on an oak and a glypto to be planted into the ground.
 
So what conclusions can we draw? The way the price bins were posed was different which affects the granularity, but whatever

~90% of bonsai people will tap out at $500 for pots, a plurality of folks ~30% will not pay more than $100 for a pot. Potters: 2/3 of the market is $100-500 and 1/3 is <$100.
Tree price is more flexible with 90% of people tapping out at ~$1-2k, ~60% of bonsai people will pay up to $250 -500

So $500 is a sort of magical psychological number for the majority in this hobby, the boundary between tell the wife or not.


View attachment 526352
You should add the "Tell Wife" vertical line. 😆
 
I'm in the 7% group, spent about $2500 on a pine two decades ago, sadly it is no longer with me. Have plans to spend up to $1300 on a Satsuki azalea this spring. I have set aside the money. but have not picked the tree yet. If you are in the Midwest, Rick Garcia is now in Indiana, and has a nice stock of satsuki available.

To expand a little on points @Sansokuu brought up. Her categories should include #6 beyond #5, where the public collections reside. Your professional artists and public collections would fall into either category 5 or 6, and these collections are very important for helping to spread the hobby. The Chicago Botanic Garden has a large bonsai collection. I

n the category of supporting the idea that bonsai is ART, the Lynden Sculpture Garden hosts the Milwaukee Bonsai Foundation collection of bonsai trees. Both Chicago and Milwaukee are respectable public collections. @IzzyG has been a generous donor to the Milwaukee Bonsai Society, & MBF and the collection at the Lynden Sculpture Garden.

As a general rule, yamadori and nursery stock will need anywhere from 5 years at a minimum to 25 years or more to be brought to "exhibit ready". In fact very little stock is truly "exhibit ready" with less than 10 years of refinement. Prices of bonsai reflect a number of things, one component is number of years in cultivation.

It goes without saying cheap trees, say less than $500, on the average, will not be "exhibition quality" in terms of being ready for shows of the caliber of the National Exhibit, or even the yearly show at the Chicago Botanic Garden. However, the same less than $500 tree might be just fine for local club shows.

There are exceptions, and some small shohin and smaller trees can be obtained less expensively and developed quickly. But on the average, good trees take TIME, and TIME adds cost to acquiring a tree.

One can start with $20 nursery stock or "free" yamadori or "urban yard-adori", put a decade in, and have a true exhibit worthy tree. Which can work out. Though in my experience, 95% of my personal $20 projects ended up on the burn pile as total failures. Every once in a while a worth while "winner" comes out of the effort. I have a number of $20 projects going right now, some a decade or more old. None I'd call successful enough to post.

And because so many of my less expensive projects are mediocre, I have discovered that starting with more expensive, better material, gives me more joy maintaining the tree and putting more effort into the rest of the collection if I got one or two that are "better" than the rest. Besides, I'm not getting any younger,

Spending more lets me skip the "nurseryman phase" of bringing a tree up to size to begin "bonsai". Raising seedlings is not bonsai, it is nursery techniques. You need mature stock to "do bonsai" on.

So instead of buying a bunch of cheap projects, save up, buy one or two "better" projects that inspire. Save myself a decade or more of grunt work.
 
So what conclusions can we draw? The way the price bins were posed was different which affects the granularity, but whatever

~90% of bonsai people will tap out at $500 for pots, a plurality of folks ~30% will not pay more than $100 for a pot. Potters: 2/3 of the market is $100-500 and 1/3 is <$100.
Tree price is more flexible with 90% of people tapping out at ~$1-2k, ~60% of bonsai people will pay up to $250 -500

So $500 is a sort of magical psychological number for the majority in this hobby, the boundary between tell the wife or not.


View attachment 526352
Interesting data set.

Have some fun with the conclusions
 
So what conclusions can we draw? The way the price bins were posed was different which affects the granularity, but whatever

~90% of bonsai people will tap out at $500 for pots, a plurality of folks ~30% will not pay more than $100 for a pot. Potters: 2/3 of the market is $100-500 and 1/3 is <$100.
Tree price is more flexible with 90% of people tapping out at ~$1-2k, ~60% of bonsai people will pay up to $250 -500

So $500 is a sort of magical psychological number for the majority in this hobby, the boundary between tell the wife or not.


View attachment 526352
My fiancee would KILL me if I spent $1000 on a tree.
 
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