A new incredible Australian Scolie has sold for the jaw-dropping price of ¥645,840 which currently exchanges to $5,840! It’s no surprise that some aquarium corals, especially in the U.S., can sell for truly eye popping figures but this time the record setting Scolie was sold in Japan.
Some closeups of the six thousand dollar scoly
This particular Scoly is pretty amazing in both its color and pattern, but it was part of a huge motherlode of some of the highest quality Australian Homophyllia australis we’ve ever seen by a company called Coral Monster. Clearly the presence of orange color, somewhat rare in Scolies, had a huge impact on the pricing of their specimens as many others were priced in the $1500 to $3000 range.
On the one hand, this perceived rarity is somewhat inflated, as many years ago I bought some very nice orange Scolies for less than a couple hundred bucks. On the other hand, orange Scolies are the rarest to come by, but it’s hard to say definitively that it’s really anymore beautiful or desirable than bright red – but this is really getting into subjective territory.
Bounce shrooms, Hallucination Zoas, Walt Disney Acro and the Homewrecker Acro are all strains of aquarium corals which were almost designed to break the bank and turn heads with extra zeroes on their pricetags. But there’s a BIG difference between these corals and a high priced showpiece Homophyllia (=Scolymia) with wild and crazy colors and patterns. These aforementioned corals grow and propagate and it’s conceivable for coral reefers to get their money back by making more of them down the line.
Super high priced Scolies are ‘just’ trophy corals, no doubt among the most psychedelic looking corals known to man and aquarists. As nice as they look, there’s no real way to propagate them and recoup an investment, which makes all Scolies more or less one of a kind, indeed adding to some of their perceived value.
But the beauty and rarity and value of some Scolies is really subjective – yeah for sure there are some truly unforgettable specimens but pricing them at ten times a similar very beautiful scolie is somewhat ‘impressive’.
These specimens range from $1,500 to $3,000!
But anyway you look at the issue of coral pricing, I’d much rather have corals be overpriced and valuable, than underpriced and worthless. You might say it’s greedy for corals to cost so much money but having corals of such value is good for the corals, ensuring that they are treasured, grown and wherever possible propagated, and with the value of Aussie Scolies at an all-time high, hopefully some reefers will be inspired to try and breed this species for the first time. [Coral Monster]
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