In my New York store. See or video of this rare drum here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NvZAmgL4pM

This is one of the rarest snare drums in the world. Gretsch made the cadillac nitron green finish only from 1954-1958. The hardware on these drums was all 24k gold plated. The color came from the Gretsch guitar line where they routinely used this color along with gold hardware on certain models. There are only 12 known drum sets worldwide, and I own two of those and sold two others. Many of the existing sets don't have snare drums. The snares are the rarest of all caddy green Gretsch drums. There are 5.5x14 snares (a few examples), and I know of perhaps two fully original 4x14s. The 6.5x14s are exceedingly rare as well, and there is only one other example of this size that I am aware of.  On this series of drums the plating was very thin, so many of the remaining drums have had very worn plating to the point where some of the nickel shows through. This drum is in remarkable condition in terms of plating. The gold plating is 100% originial and has very strong color and is not worn. The drum came to us from a person who acquired it from the family of the original owner. The drum was hardly ever played so it has seen very little wear. In the video we show some areas of built up grime from the past 60 years. On a chrome plated drum I'd clean this up, but since the gold plating is delicate we're not going to do anything that might compromise the appearance so we'll leave it as you see it here. The shell is a 3 ply shell which places the drum right before the 3-to-6-ply conversion which was circa 1957-58. The bearing edges are absolutely factory perfect. The 3 ply shell has the correct plain interior and no paper tag, which is also correct. The 3 ply drums had plain interors and no paper tags. Silver sealer interior paint and paper tags came into place when the switch was made from 3 ply to 6 ply shells. No extra holes and no alterations on this drum. The original strainer would have been a gold plated microsensitive strainer.  That strainer very likely broke, as most of them do. The owner used another period correct microsenstive strainer so there are no extra holes. However, this strainer is chrome and also is missing the tension knob. We will replace the strainer with a working strainer. Also, if the new owner desires it, we have the ability to have the strainer zirconium gold plated so that it will more closely match the 100% original plating on the rest of the drum. The original single-node butt plate is present and fully functional and has the original gold plating. The heads and snare wires are replacements and the buyer can specify the heads they'd like as well as the snare wires. Contact Steve at vintagedrums@aol.com or by cell phone at 630-865-6849 for pricing. This is something you will never likely see again.