When you have a budding musician there are 2 important things to consider:
1. Cost.
2. Quality.
You don't want to sacrifice their ability to learn by getting them an instrument which is poorly constructed or one that plays badly. You also don't want to spend a lot of money on an instrument without knowing if they will continue playing it.
This simple single F horn by Yamaha fits both bills. It's priced quite low, and it plays like a single F should! Yamaha is known for top quality, and the valves on this horn have a perfect compression reading of 0.1.
Now, this horn has plenty of wear on it - missing some lacquer, lots of dents (smaller, plus evidence of some repaired ones as well) and evidence of some re-soldering a broken brace - but NONE of this affects the way the horn plays, but it DOES affect the price - thus the low $500 tag.
It comes with a Yamaha fixed bell case.
If the player doesn't end up sticking with the horn - you can still turn around and sell it and get your money back!