I have a brass key made at the local hardware store for emergency use.
I'd rather not have the particles in the locks. We keep the good key for every day use.
I've seen the good, genuine, blanks on ebay from time to time. If you're not in a hurry, I'd suggest that. If you go that route, ask the seller questions and for close up pics of the key blank, easy to do with todays digital cameras.
Then again, that could be looked at as a lot of work, multiple searches, questions, photos, etc. The $35 is just at the cusp of being ridiculous, but you'd at least be done with it with a genuine key.
For $35, I'd suck it up and do it, but I wouldn't tell my wife about it
$40- maybe not.