Wow, what a lot of great responses. Thanks to all of you!
I tend to agree with Carol. As I mentioned, I play other instruments, and I know that a cheap, poorly-made instruement is much more difficult to play than a quality piece, not to mention that quality also will sound a whole lot better. I think that maybe a lot of aspiring young musicians may be discouraged from continuing in their musical endeavor when they find out how difficult it is to learn one. Making it more difficult with a cheap instrument is not a good thing.
As said on here, I think a good box is a good "investment", both monetarily and musically.
I'll keep reading here, keep looking in the pawnshops and ebay, and keep my eyes open for a nice LA or TX box. Is there a particular website anyone recommends to go to and read up on specifically what to look for, how to recognize them, etc.
Finally, one more question: How about a piano accordion? I don't know enough about this genre of music to know if you can get a good cajun or zydeco sound from a piano accordion. Can it be done?
would it be much more difficult to do (play the notes) on a piano than on a diatonic? (I already play the piano, so fingering would not be an issue).
The piano accordion once ruled the roost in zydeco. It's still a rockin' instrument though!
Check out CDs by Corey Ledet, Lil' Nathan, Curley Taylor, and Lil' Brian & The Zydeco Travelers for some new school mastery. In the old school, you probably already know about Clifton Chenier! But there's also C.J. Chenier, Buckwheat Zydeco, Nathan Williams, Wilfred Chevis, Leon Sam, and Lynn August just to name a few.