As a smith who's only gotten to banded armor (115) I can garuntee that you won't be buying Fine Plate at a reasonable upgrade price over Banded. Skilling up to Banded takes a few hundred plat, skilling up to Fine Plate after that takes a few thousand. Plus, the material costs are so high (up to 20pp just for some of the molds) that there is no way in hell that you will find it any cheaper than about 50pp per piece (assuming the seller wants to make little/no profit, and not taking into account the amount of cash the smith had to put into his skill to make the crap.). Just as an example, the material cost for a Fine Plate BP is around 80pp if you get the low quality pelts and make leather padding yourself.
EDIT: TL;DR: Buy Bronze.
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