2001 Camry , leak, head casket blown?

I have a 2001 camry had a slight leak 2 months ago , continuede to drive it for a month then took to0 shop they said it was the head casket .I basically stopped driving it only a few miles the past few weeks I use my other car , but now the car has not overheated and the leak is very slight the engine temp was perfect every time i drove it and there is no white exhaust , could thios still be the head casket?

Also the shop said it was 1500 to fix and they would send out to a machine shop if there are any cracks it would be an additional 500 , now why would you not put a new heaD casket on? I was looking them up and they seem only to be 100 bucks or so

Thanks