Sequimite wrote:
I get something inexpensive but fully functional...
Whistles are fairly rare in the music world, in that this is possible.
For it's the functionality that costs money, with most instruments. As you pay a higher and higher price you get more and more function, and top-end instruments can do all sorts of subtle things that are extremely difficult, or impossible, on cheap ones.
This became most apparent to me when, after playing a $1,000 Yamaha Boehm flute for a few years, a friend let me play his Haynes. OMG the difference was greater than I could have imagined!
But with whistles, after 40 years of playing, my best whistles are the old ones I got for under $10.
Sequimite wrote:
...buy at a price which will allow me to resell with little loss...purchase hasn't been an expense, I'm merely parking my money in these assets indefinitely and can change these back into money fairly easily.
Yes indeed, that's my philosophy exactly! Buy a whistle used, try it as long as I like, then if I don't want to keep it I resell it at the same price, giving me an indefinite free rental period.
I bought and tried 30 or so Low Ds from a large number of makers before I settled on the Goldie I now play...and the sum total price I paid was the price of that single whistle.