Get a COB Powertone until you find a gold sparkle Rogers snare. They are quite common, cheap, and sound great!

This.............

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Rogers-5x14-Wood-Dynasonic-Snare-Drum-Bread-and-Butter-Lugs-60s-/331084793024?pt=Vintgae_Drums_Percussion&hash=item4d163104c0

x-mas3

ditto above

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1964-Vintage-Rogers-Wood-Dynasonic-Snare-Drum-for-Set-Kit-Clean-3-ply-shell-/261364545504?pt=US_Drums&hash=item3cda8a77e0

Perhaps he was thinking more in terms of something that someone could afford in the month following the biggest buying (spending) month of the year.

Of course that is easy for me to say, being the MIJ enthusiast that I am (for a reason).

That all said, I seriously would buy the COB snare first since such a snare would be more practical than one of your gold suggestions. I decided to go with a COS R-380 instead of a matching one for my R-380 kit. Now I can use it with anything else I play (which I indeed have).

edit added - no implication hardbopman.

If it were me I would want to match a wood shell Tower snare to the Tower kit. In the meantime I would use any brand gold sparkle snare until I found the gold sparkle Tower snare.

Yes this one too~! Excited

This is great feedback guys..thanks. I would need some heavy convincing to spend that kind money for either of those Dyna's. I played one for 3 months in 1969 and couldn't wait to get rid of it. I know....Blasphemy! I would love to find a tower or powertone woody in gold sparkle but they are just not out there. I'm leaning towards the COB powertone....for now??

I would like a Dynasonic to round out my Celebrity kit but I would also have a hard time forking over that kinda cash for a snare. To give you an idea those snares are more than my Benny Greb signature snare and even more than my custom built Sonor SQ2 snare. The only affordable wood Rogers snare I have seen lately is the Luxor besides the COB snares.