By Will Dabbs, MD
What real man wouldn’t want to own a tank? The less-durable members of society might find this shocking, but surplus armored vehicles buy and sell just like any used farm tractor so long as the armament is demilled. That usually involves cutting the breechblock off of the cannon with a torch. The end result leaves the tube outside intact so it looks cool and actually offers a little extra space to move about the interior.
Surplus tanks are uniformly expensive here in the United States. I don’t know why that is. Trial attorneys, perhaps. However, they seem to be much cheaper and more readily available in the UK. Maybe British men don’t have wives like we do. Regardless, landing your own surplus tank in the United Kingdom appears to be a fairly straightforward chore. You can even buy one online.
Nick Mead of Helmdon, Northhamptonshire, England, obviously has a pretty open-minded bride. In 2017, he bought a 36-ton Chinese Type 69 tank off of eBay. Then he found that it came with an unexpected bonus.
The Guy
Nick Mead is not just some average dude. Apparently his wife is REALLY understanding. He already owns a collection of 150 military vehicles. He has monetized this veritable army of armor into a thriving business he calls Tanks A Lot Ltd. According to his website, people rent his tanks for movies, weddings, funerals, and parties. Those are funerals I wouldn’t mind attending.
They were asking $37,000, but Nick didn’t buy this Chinese tank outright. He traded another tank and a self-propelled gun for it. However, once he got his new prize home and began pawing over its entrails he discovered some live machine gun ammunition. As the Limeys are not nearly so open-minded about guns as we are over here on the free side of the pond, he figured he had best give the beast a proper once-over. With the able assistance of his friend and mechanic Todd Chamberlain, Nick tore the vehicle down, documenting everything via video.
Serendipity
When they peered inside the fuel tank, Nick and Todd spotted something strange. With the cameras rolling, they drained the thing of diesel and cut the fuel reservoir open. Inside, they discovered five solid gold bars weighing around twelve pounds apiece. In the local vernacular, that’s a bloody lot of gold. Now Nick and Todd had some big decisions to make.
I sure know what I’d do. I’d go out and buy myself some more tanks. However, these guys were more civic-minded than am I. Nick later said, “We didn’t know what to do. You can’t exactly take five gold bullion bars down to Cash Converters without questions being asked, so we called the police.”
Well, tragically, there’s no putting that back in the box.
The Aftermath
The police took the gold, because that’s what the government does. Like, every single time. It assayed out to $2,474,600. The internet couldn’t tell me exactly what the British cops did with it. Maybe they bought themselves some more of those funny hats. Regardless, Nick never saw a farthing.
This particular tank apparently once belonged to the Iraqis. Iraqi soldiers most likely looted the gold and then hid it in the fuel tank in hopes of getting it past Allied forces. This they obviously did, though they quite possibly perished in the attempt. Had Nick not felt inclined to look, that $2.4 million-worth of gold bullion would have simply sat there until the sun burned out. Nick now says he regrets having told anybody. Yeah, I bet.
So, if ever you see me dressed to the nines, grinning like a monkey on crack, and cruising around Oxford, Mississippi, in a sparkly new tank, you’ll know that I hit it big in the armored vehicle lottery myself. If ever I do buy a tank and find a zillion dollars’ worth of gold in the gas tank, you can bet your royal family that I’m not telling a soul. Because the only thing better than having your own tank, would be having your own tank and that big pile of gold.
