First, does the badge have USA on it?

I remember someone posting about a polished brass Rogers snare. The theory is that it was a stock brass shell without the chrome plating. Maybe this one is brass but looks like gold?

I remember a gold plated big R Dyna-Sonic that I almost bought from the late Liam Mulholland about 15-16 yrs. ago...It had a rectangular plaque commemorating someone that won the drum in some contest.

Mike Curotto

That gold plated drum is an Island Music production, made in Taiwan. Not real Rogers. It has been floating around for a while, and occasionally pops up on ebay. Much ado about nothing.....

There was also some controvery about the chain of ownership; I heard that the owner named on the plate showed up and said the drum was his, had been borrowed or stolen, and demanded it back. I don't know how that was resolved...

I think we have three different drums being discussed.

The "gold plated" tube lug deal came from Island Music. They did not make many of them, and for a generic snare drum it was ok. It isn't a real Rogers.

The other drum, with the plate naming a guy I think was Proctor, that was a real Rogers drum made in the 70s. Pics of it are in the Rob Cook book. And there were issues with provenance and right of title. Glad I did not buy that one. It was a Superten style shell, no center 5 lines on that one. And a one off.

The Real Big R was not gold plated. It was a bare naked brass Dyna-Sonic that had a lacquer finish to protect the highly polished shell. These drums came out in 1981-82 sometime and were produced to the end. Serial number badges for earlier drums would have been RD six digit 960000, RD970000, and RD980000 ranges. 1983/84 drums would have been badged D six digit 100000- approximately 125000.

There was also one other Oval Badge bare naked polished brass with lacquer finish Dyna-Sonic that was part of Longroll's collection. Whoever bought the collection got that drum. Mike C might know about it.

Well, I do belive it was island music who made it .the big R is on it and nothing else .No serial number and it has tube lugs on it and was gold plated . but the gold plating wasn't good . was trying to figure out when it was made and how many in the run . I was told it wasn't very many and could possibly worth something ...... Again I was told but wanted some facts . thanks