There have been snares with the wires under the batter. premier in particular made (makes?) marching/pipe drums with 2 sets of snares, and Remo's old PTS Junior kit had a terrific little snare with basically a wire brush pushed against the top head (if I recall correctly.) Ludwig and probably a few other companies made snares with a set of batter-side wires pushing from the inside. Although all of those drums had 2 heads.

RhythmTech has a single headed "snare" - http://www.rhythmtech.com/products/drums/drums_pages/laptop.php - but it's really more of a portable practice item rather than meant as a drum. However it can certainly be used as a snare.

Bermuda

The topic of a single headed snare came up about 2 weeks ago, & I have been looking in my old catalogs. I know, in the past, I have seen one in the catalog of some major maker, but have not been able to find it.

This was a snare that was not a cocktail drum.

yes actually :)

KCDrumDad has one. Quite a unique drum and sound from it.

In the 1950's cocktail floor toms were one headed with snare wires under the head.

I started a thread (Slingerland Stereo-Tom Toms) a while back (05-04-2012) with no responses.

The Link ... http://www.vintagedrumforum.com/showthread.php?t=29612

Here's a pic from the 1960 Slingerland Cat that gives the writeup for the Stereo Tom. I believe that is basically the genesis of this idea. I have no clue if Slingerland was the first to pioneer this snare/tom idea, but it sure appears as if the one you show has some lineage to the Slingerland concept.

Hope this helps.

What about Tango drums? I have seen them from the late 1800s. Single headed with wires underneath.

Jump For Joy

If nothing else there is now a second definition for "concert snare drum."

Purecussion made a snare to go w/ their shell-less kits.It was a 12" head w/ the snare wires that would spread under the batter head.

The photo is a view of the drum from the top down.

There's a row of lugs on the upper end of the shell for the batter head that has been removed for the photo.

It could be this:

A tom to which someone added a throwoff and wires. Looks like the throwoff is mounted in the middle of the shell, while the butt is in a normal position near the bottom. That's the bottom head we're looking at. I can see the adjustment knob on top of the throwoff, so we are looking at the wires on the bottom of the drum, not the top. I see a tom made into a snare, not an original single-head snare drum.

The wires being under the head is likely an experiment, but the orientation of the throwoff tells me that we're looking at the bottom of the drum.

Looks like a 'hazy' snare side head on the bottom or even a coated head.

Or, it could be this:

an original deep snare, with the wires mounted under the bottom head, a coated head instead of a snareside, and he intends to play it 'upside down'.

In either case, with the wires this way, they cannot be adjusted. And having the strings going over the bearing edge will make tuning the bottom head a little tough: even if the snarebeds are deep, the head will conform to them and put pressure on the strings.