My recommendation would be to rent a horn. You can get a good YAS-23 for around $25-$35 a month and avoid having to spend all your money at once. If your child wants to continue, you've already paid some for the horn in rental (many music stores have a rent-to-own policy). If not, you haven't lost that much.

To be completely honest, I don't think you would be doing your child a service if you bought him a cheap $250 sax off the eBay. Although saxophones are great instruments, they are relatively expensive to other instruments. Before you set your mind on saxophone, keep in mind it's a VERY high maintenance instrument, from my past experiences. Keep in mind, I'm just a freshman saxophone but I do have 4 years of alto saxophone playing experience. I know one of my saxophone got a very cheap saxophone off the internet, and to be completely honest it plays like crap. It's extremely hard to play out the notes and your child will be wondering why he sounds so much worse than the other player. I would recommend you rent a YAS-23 which is a very good sax and has faithfully served me for four years (I'm now looking for a professional alto saxophone) and has been in good shape more or less. Or I would recommend you have your child look for another instrument which is cheaper. Saxophone although is a great instrument is by far not "the best" of the best. Have your son look for other instruments. The reason being is that saxophone is a much more complex instrument and costs more money to make. If you do decide to buy an alto saxophone, be sure you don't sink in the last $250.00 you have to get that instrument because I *guarantee* you will spend lots more money afterwards such as: --> Reeds - You must get reeds and depending on how much your son plays the saxophone and how careful your son is about not cracking or damaging the reeds. Personally, I use up a reed about every 7-10 days, however when I started playing I used up a reeds only about every other week. Again this is all based on my personal results and may or may not be the same for your son. --> neck strap. Although most saxophones come with neck straps, be sure to buy one if you don't get one with your saxophone! A neck strap is completely necessary and never, ever get open hook. What I mean is that you never want those "curved open" hooks that connects the neck strap to the saxophone. The reason being is that I've had a friend drop his saxohpone because the hook came off the saxophone. You will want to get swivel hook. Trust me, for about the same price you will save yourself an almost certain accident if you otherwise bought an open hook. --> Annual tuning. While I'm not sure if you absolutely need to get your saxophone tuned up every year, I always tune up my saxophone every year during summer. I got a special deal with my saxophone that gives me a free annual tuneup. (Note: I did pay $1000 for my YAS-23 brand new). Annual tune ups cost around $50-100 depending how much needs to be tuned. - Mouthpieces. I absolutely guarantee if your son plays alto saxophone he will crack the mouthpiece sooner or later. I have personally cracked two alto saxohone mouth pieces. The mouthpiece is extremely fragile and breaks extremely easy (for beginning mouthpieces) Expect to pay $40.00 for a brand new mouthpiece if this happens. I don't want to scare you with all these price figures, but I want you to know what to expect and not have any unexpected headaches in the future. William Chen