well, ya'll got them to learn to play them so value is really a secondary thing anyways.
The important thing is playing them.
I'm a Selmer man myself ....... .... sax preference is pretty personal .... really moreso than guitar and I play guitar so I know what I'm talking 'bout here.
A lot of your tone on sax comes from the structure of your throat and tongue which is, of course, different for everyone.
My first sax was a Buescher 400 which I semi-wish I still had ...... then I went to Yamahas for decades before finally spending the big bucks to go Selmer 15 years or so ago.
To me the single biggest thing though is tuning.
Finding a horn you can play in tune is paramount.
Even very good players play out of tune ...... that's just an inherent thing with saxes.
You'd be amazed how many big name guys play out of tune live.
I hear tapes of me from a long time ago and wince.
But I'm a piano tuner so I play in tune now.
In fact ...... about 3 months ago a very good guitar player showed up at a biker event I was playing and when he got to the stage he said, "Louisiana Steve! I knew it was you the second I got out of my car!"
I was excited, thinking that I'd developed a recognizable tone of my own that people would know was me.
LOL
I asked how he had known, just SURE that it was my awesome tone and I wanted to revel in that compliment.
He said, "You were playing in tune!"
Not what I was hoping for.