Hi. I was wondering--if the only affordable bassoon available for a high school boy to play was a Fox 51 short reach model, would you buy it? Probably not someone who will become a professional musician.
Thanks!
Wendy

I would think the short answer would be "no."
The long answer might involve several questions, such as "if this person is probably not going to be a serious player, why would he need to buy a bassoon anyway?" Also, are there no rental bassoons in this area? Does he live in such a remote area that there are no mentors who could help him find a bassoon?

I think a little more research is called for to see what else might be available.

The reason that we are looking to buy a bassoon is that our band director says that he does not want to spend the $ to get one of the school's bassoons in playing condition. And actually we do live in a pretty remote area with no rentals available. Rent a flute, clarinet, sax, etc. no problem, but the ONE music store in the area that rents does not rent bassoons. I played the bassoon, and my son, a freshman in high school would like to also. I just don't have $2000+ to spend on an instrument unfortunately. I know that the school does have a decent Fox that I played over 25 years ago, and Chip Owen at the Fox factory said that it could easily be made better than it was when I played it for around $500, but I have very mixed feelings about paying to have a school instrument fixed.

I just don't know if this is an endeavor that we should give up on...

One place to try is Midwest Musical Imports. You can access them online and I think they would stand behind anything you bought there. They have a couple at the moment in the used category.