Originally Posted by
BarbJ
In my experience, (not a ton of experience mind you) at a lower price point you have to choose which three aspects of quality to shoot for.
Skin quality; luster, sheen, evenness.
Conformation; good bone structure, symmetry, good even torpedo shape front to back, good sized head, good tail thickness.
Pattern; Strong, even color, good balance front to back, side to side and fit to fish, as a young small fish and a larger older fish.
Lesser price point fish will compromise on at least two, if not all three points. Medium priced point fish usually have at least two out of three, show quality priced fish usually will have all three. On average. ymmv.
So you should decide which points are most important to you, in other words which points can you live without, which you cannot.
I try to choose good conformation first, and good skin quality next. Pattern is the least of my concerns, that is my choice to compromise on.
A funny body shape will always bother me, no matter how good the other two are, that's my focus. If it has good skin quality, that's even better. I can live with a so-so pattern if the other two are decent.
For someone else, it could be pattern is most important, they don't mind a football body if the pattern pleases them.
This isn't to say that all my fish have turned out well, I didn't always have a good eye, and I'm always learning, but I think my later picks seem to be getting better than my earlier picks.
Now my disclaimer; I have spent more than $100 on all my fish, but most have been less than $500, when you jump up into a little bit higher price point it does get you better fish to pick from.
So you see you have to decide what you can and cannot live with at a lower price point.
If a koi has all three points it's not going to be in the $100-200 price range. Heck it may not even be in the $$$ at all, it could go into the $$$$ range, depending on how good each area is.
I'm just saying it will be easier for you to evaluate lower priced koi if you think about which quality areas you want and which you can compromise on.