I dropped in at a guitar shop in Nashville this week on my lunch break to check out whatever drums they might have. I got an acrolite for $50 there once. Anyway, on this day they just had several chrome snares made in Taiwan or China and they were all priced low.
Stuck in the middle of the pile was another chrome snare drum with an old Pearl logo. The drum was really heavy so I knew it wasn't steel or aluminum. I realized that it was the Stewart Copeland drum I'd heard about on youtube (check out Bonzoleum's videos). It was the COB Pearl B4514 from the mid to late 70s. This drum was used in recording all of the Police hits according to Copeland- and this is the drum that Tama modeled their Copeland signature snare drum from. There's photos of Copeland still using this drum today even though he has his own signature COB Tama drum.
Look out for this drum next time you're in a pawn shop or used music store. It's built like a tank, weighs a ton, and sounds killer. Here's some pics after cleaning it. It was really dirty before.
