What Makes a Cat Valuable to You?

[Sara Franco]

What makes a cat valuable to you when you are pricing it to sell or deciding to buy it?

For me it is about the combination of traits, not a single trait by itself.

I think every cat is unique if you are not just looking for one specific trait. For example, I don't look up a fur and then try to buy the cheapest cat that has it, or price my cat based only on that fur.

What matters to me is how the traits come together on one cat. I usually care about the fur, the eyes, and the whisker color matching well. In auctions, that's usually what I buy, a well-matched cat. Then I can add my own touch to it by adding more matchiness or a different match based on it. I think a lot of people care about that too.

So if a certain fur exists in Torgon for something like 99L, that doesn't mean to me that this is the value of any cat that has that trait. If you search for that fur together with specific eyes, for example, you might find that the combination is much rarer and more expensive.

Even when I want to build a new combination myself (which is usually what I try to do and enjoy the most), I still look for certain traits already present. I usually work on the fur, the eyes, and the whisker color myself and try to choose a combination that does not exist, or is not common. So if possible, I like starting with the most recessive shade, whisker shape, and tail that I like, so I don't always have to build everything from scratch. I'm more flexible with ears, but I try to add cute ones that are not very dominant, so I have more range later if I want to change the ears.

I actually menagerie any cat that looks badly matched to me, unless it is just a step in a project or has a new trait. If I don't think it is pretty myself, I don't expect someone else to want to buy it, so it doesn't even make it to my shop. I do this instead of pricing it low. That is why my shop hardly has very cheap cats, they are in the menagerie. It might not be the most practical choice if you are trying to sell, but it feels right to me. I don't have a big shop, so every cat that takes up space there has to be valuable to me and I'd rather they take years to sell if it means they get the appreciation they deserve.

However, there is no single way to value a cat or decide what to do with it, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.