I've owned an MV300.  They have a spruce top and maple sides, back, neck and etc.  The fingerboards of all the ones I've even heard of are a light coloured wood that is painted.  Never could find out what kind of wood the fingerboard is.. BUT.. It is some hardwood that holds up pretty well, and just didn't happen to be *naturally* dark. 

They have a metal alloy tailpiece.

They are a fairly rugged and dependable little violin, and one of the absolute least expensive that is made of real wood and not plywood or particle board. 

Those are the facts so far as I know them. Now, opinions.  I think there are better violins, or at least ones more to my taste, for not a lot more money.  If you went even 100$ more, you might find something you like better.  Or you might NOT.  So much of the sound of violin is the player, rather than just the instrument, and what different people like in the sound varies from person to person..

Check this out.. An experienced player playing an MV300, probably just like yours.  Just as it comes out of the box, didn't change strings or get it professionally adjusted by a luthier or something..

Does that sound "good enough" for you?  I think it's pretty darn good!  Especially for the price.  Now, the difference would be that she has years of experience playing violin, and that video was professionally shot, recorded and produced.  But if you listen close, you may even be able to recognize that it is a Mendini MV300.  They do have a certain sound to them, like any brand. 

The pro recording and production, it can never make actual crap sound good.  What pros can do is present the best sound something can make in the best way.  But there does have to be some goodness to it to begin with, for it to end up sounding really good.  So that stuff is a factor in that video, but it is not "magic".  That Mendini is doing a nice job right there.

When I first got mine, I  didn't know anything about acoustic violin.  I'd been playing electric for a few months.  So I thought the sound was crappy.  After a few months, I upgraded to a violin I liked the sound of better, and gave the Mendini away to a friend.  It was too decent a little instrument to just throw away, and others could get some use out of it even if it wasn't to my own tastes at the time.

Now here's another video of a "cousin" of your violin, one of the least expensive Cecilios, and done by our very own Fiddlerman, the owner of this site, and definitely a professional violinist..

You can skip over most of the review and hear him play a bit on it near the end.  He definitely is getting some good sounds out of it.  It is very listenable, and not horrible or anything.

I can tell you that most violin teachers who teach beginners I've seen discussing instruments have really just a couple of concerns.  Does it hold tune at least ok?  Is it made well enough to not fall to bits in a month or two?  And some of them also will mention the action should be low enough to play comfortably, but that isn't as big a concern, since a shop or luthier can trim the bridge to adjust that.  I'd say an MV300 is fine on those scores.  My old one was used by a kid in their school music program and the teacher not only approved it but actually liked it. 

So now we come to the most important part.  From the your post, it sounds like you like your new violin.  That alone is enough to make it rate as "good".  And if you like it enough to want to play it a lot and enjoy playing on it, that makes it rate VERY good, at least in my book.  Definitely at least good enough to get you started.

So, congratulations!  And welcome to the madness that is the violin!  LOL

I am left-handed as well, but play like a right handed person.  I tried left handed guitars and flipping over regularly strung guitars back when I first started guitar in my teens, and playing it the way most right-handed people do was what felt the most comfortable/natural to me.  I think it was good to try the alternatives, though.

For me it just always made sense to use the hand with the best dexterity on the strings and let the right hand cope with the pick.  When I eventually learned more complex right-hand things like finger-picking, it took me a bit more time and practice, since my right hand is the clumsier one.

So when I got a violin, I didn't try playing it left-handed. 

But I do have to wonder if a lot of folks might have an easier time with musical instruments if they tried them in all the variations and figured out which felt the most natural before getting down to the business of learning them.  Not just left-handed people, but everyone, since I am not so sure as which hand you write with is always a reliable indicator of which way will be easiest to play an instrument.  

Unfortunately, as I'm sure I don't need to tell you, this is pretty much a "right handers' world", and finding left-handed instruments to even try can be difficult, and they will usually cost more. 

Stringing the violin differently to try and make a right handed one into a left handed one may not work so well, since there is a long bar inside called the bass bar that runs along the inside under the usual bass string side, and the soundpost is to the treble string side.  Also the nut and bridge would need to be re-done so the notches and heights were right for the strings' new order. 

Maybe with some teachers they just aren't up for the challenge of maybe having to think a little and figure out things like the example Mark_1 pointed out about having to reverse bow direction to get the same exact sound as a right-hander would in some spots when playing chords.

One would like to think that someone with the training and experience to be a teacher they would already have some idea on how to cope with a few minor differences for something like left-handed/right-handed playing.  Or, as has often been mentioned in these forums, those teachers that won't even try with adult students.  I think it's a load of bullcrap.  I feel that if a person at any age is motivated and serious enough to be looking for lessons, they should be taken seriously and given the teacher's best effort and all the encouragement that can be realistically offered. 

However, that is apparently not always the case.

I do hope that as the violin continues to increase in popularity as an instrument and to find it's voice in other genres and styles, that a new generation of teachers will emerge that are more adaptable and better suited to equipping their students to really chase some dreams.

Well, if you are gigging or jamming, or paying for recording sessions, then I'd say 2 is more like the minimum.  If you break a string or the tuning suddenly goes wonky, you don't want everybody to have to stop while you take care of it.  Just switch to your tuned and waiting backup at the first sign of trouble. 

But beyond that, if you work in alternate tunings regularly, then "extra" instruments definitely do not have to just gather dust. 

It can be argued that an absolute beginner has enough to worry about at first without dealing with things like alternate tunings, but even fairly early on a song is likely to catch your fancy that just happens to usually be played "funny tuned".  I don't think it is that big a jump after a player has made their first few months of progress, and is comfortable with the idea of a special tuning being "normal" for certain songs/sounds.  It does mean a bit more practice, since alternate tuning take some practice on their own, but a lot of players are up for that.

I don't have that luxury with violin (YET!  LOL), but for example I have two 6 string acoustic guitars, and I usually keep one in standard tuning and one in whichever alternate tuning I'm working with this week.  I also have two electric bass guitars, and I keep one of them tuned standard and one tuned to what some metal players call "slack B" tuning.  That goes way down in pitch; I think the orchestral stringed instrument in that range would be the extended (5 string) contrabass.  I don't think there's many orchestral pieces that actually require that range, but it is not unusual in old jazz, rockabilly or metal, and it is just fun to play that far down in the bottom sometimes.  It takes heavier gauge strings and a higher action to keep them from buzzing when you tune a bass guitar that low, so it could not be done well by just retuning the regular bass for a song or two. 

Sometimes instruments also have sentimental value for us, and so we may have more than someone else thinks is "enough".  Like with Coolpinkone's "pinky", it was a gift bought for her.  So just selling it off for whatever she could get for it might not feel right.  On the other hand, I know she has at least thought hard about re-stringing "pinky" to tune down to viola range, so she can give that sound a try.

But if one does end up with instruments that are truly "extra" to the point of being redundant and gathering dust, there's always the possibility of gifting them to a friend or family member who want to get started learning.  Local schools and college music departments also are usually very happy to get an instrument donated to them.  Even ones of very humble price-tag origins, if they are playable or can be made so with some work.