Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I recently had a student buy this instrument for beginning band. First I would like to say, I am a more experienced reviewer than anyone else I see on this board. I have played professionally for 22 years and I build horns myself. This instrument was a complete piece of junk. Essentially something I like to call a future lamp. It looks like a trumpet, but it can't actually do what a trumpet is supposed to do, and as such, is not really an isntrument. The valves have discoloration on them already, meaning the alloy used to plate them is of such poor quality that the valves will essentially be shot within a few weeks. The lacquer coating has drips, runs, and is peeling out of the box. They didn't even take the time to remove burrs off the metal cuts, a kid could actually cut his hand on the bottom of the valves fairly badly. Now to the most laughably bad part, the threading on the top of the valves that holds them in the horn wasn't able to thread into itself. You can just pull it off without actually unscrewing it, because the inner an outer threads don't catch. Parents, go get your band teacher's help. They can help you find a REAL used instrument of a quality brand for around the same price, that will last long enough for your great grand children to be playing on. If you aren't a trumpet player yourself you are in NO POSITION to be blindly buying something like this. You may as well just take $150 out back and burn it.