Regarding the Gaura Nitai deities, I think 100 dollars is too much to pay for one pair of deities. Better you carve them from wood. In India the carvers have always used a wood bitter in taste, this keeps the worms from eating it, best is nim wood if such wood (bitter in taste) is available there then why not make Gaura Nitai from wood. In New Vrindaban we have so much woodland, it is not that deities have to be made in Hawaii, why not in New Vrindaban and supply all our centers?
Letter to Brsni Das Prabhu, 27 November, 1975