I march in a ||{1}||. I needed to buy two 3-valve mellophones - one for me and one for someone else in my section. One of them looks great (once I had the dent removed) and the other one needs a re-plating that would probably cost more than it's worth. I volunteered to take the crappy one. Though, in my opinion, the crappy one sounds better, so I guess it depends on what your priorities are. It will not look that bad when I'm marching in a line full of people. Got these from Minnesota Brass. Dealt with two of their staff, the director being the more accomodating one. The guy in charge of the horns didn't bother to tell me what the problems were. (I wasn't assuming they were in mint condition, but it would have been the nice thing to do.) ||{1}|| I would say, if you have time to continuously follow up with people and don't mind mystery shopping, buy a used horn from Minnesota Brass. Otherwise, you might do better elsewhere. PS - G is the key of drum corps.