I rented a flute in 5th grade. I rented a new one (wanted open hole) in 6th and 7th grade. I dropped band in 8th and returned to piano in 9th (in total I took 14 years of lessons and own a beautiful grand piano I play daily now). I am so glad my parents didn't waste the money buying me that open hole flute. I have had no desire to ever play again since I quit as a 12 year old.

Can you keep renting it until he loses interest? Other option is to buy and sell later, but things have a tendency to hang around.

Violin shop has 2 sets of price for violins:

For example, a model X violin, if you buy in one payment cost $350; but if you rent to own, the rental to own total actual cost (after numbers of payments) is about $550.

In general, monthly rental is about $25-$45 depends on the quality of the violin. you may try to talk to the violin store and see if they can sell you a lower model (or other instrument, book, accessories) applying the credit toward the purchase.

There is a very informative web site you may want to take a look
http://violininformation.webs.com/

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just continue to rent, or use the school instrument for free.

Unless your child is a teen, he will grow out of the instrument several times over the elementary/middle school years. There is no point in buying the instrument unless he has finished growing.

If you feel you must buy, check out craigslist. Child sized instruments regularly get listed there for very cheap.

I once found a family selling 2 violins (I believe 1/4 and 1/2 sizes) for under $50.00 each.

Doesn't that depend on the instrument? In our household growing up we played trombone, flute, recorder, and piano, none of which have different sizes.

True, but Craigslist is still a great option because musical instruments retain their value, so by and large you can sell your instrument for about what you paid for it.

Our son plays the cello and we have always bought from Craigslist sellers, then sold it when he outgrew it (for the same as what we had paid). He now plays an adult-size cello that cost many thousands of dollars, and if he needs to trade up then Potter's Violin Shop will take it back as a trade-in for exactly what we paid less a reasonable refurbishing fee.

Rent, this may pass, I 'll bet the grandmother had no idea of the cost before she offered.