Kitchen Sink Comparisons

I am doing the legwork for an elderly customer of mine. She has up to $300 to spend on a new kitchen sink. It must be self-rimming and either bone, almond, or bisque color, so stainless is out. My experience with kitchen sinks is mostly with stainless, hence this post.

We have no big box stores here, but I can order virtually anything from our plumbing supply house, Foxworth Galbraith, or Do It Best center.

What are the pros and cons of the following:

Porcelain over steel--cheapest--100-$150
Sterling Vikrell composite--150-$200
Swanstone--250-$300
Kohler porcelain over cast iron--$300 and up
Other brands of composites and porcelain/cast iron

sink

Cast iron, or Americast would be my only choices.

Eljer

I bought an Eljer about 10 years ago, and I really like it. It is an elongated octagon, and I got the extra fancy cutting board and wire dish rack for it. A quick trip to their website looks like they don't have all the fancy stuff anymore, but it was a quality cast self rimmer, made in the US.
mike

AS enameled CI is good Iam sure there are more.I do like self rimming sinks.

Swanstone

After installing my first Swanstone sink last month, I will stand by the way it looks, the ease in which it cleans and the light weight made it a breeze to install. The nice thing about the Swanstone is that when you scrub it it looks new again. Cant say that about stainless steel or enamel as we all know what they look like after a year of banging pots, pans, steel utensils etc around the inside of them.

Tony

Thanks for the input.

Another question:

I understand that plumber's putty can damage certain materials. What types of sinks should plumber's putty not be used with. I'm talking primarily about basket strainer installations, since I usually don't use plumber's putty under the faucet.