Show your wife this piece next time she laments you over your “crazy” collection obsessions. Nick Mead, a tank collector from the UK, got the surprise of his life when bought a used ex-military tank from eBay.
He thought he struck gold when he got an ex-Iraqi Army Type 69 tank for a cheap deal. Little did he know that he would actually find five gold bars worth $2.4 million hidden in the fuel tank!
Mead owns a private company that supplies tanks and armored vehicles to drama and filmmakers, theme parties and the occasional driving classes. For this purpose, he acquired the tank by trading an Abbot self-propelled howitzer and a British Army truck on eBay, that were valued at $37,000.
Mead and his mechanic discovered some machine gun ammunition in the vehicle, which was odd and made them think that some more firearms must be hidden in the fuel tank. They decided to film the rest of the inspection to avoid any legal suspicion, and they would be thanking their lucky stars for this as they pulled out not ammunition but five gold bars, weighing about 12 pounds each from the tank!
Appropriately, the treasure was promptly handed over to authorities. The media now speculates that it is likely from Kuwait, where the Iraqi forces attacked and plundered the country in the 1990 invasion. They were made to return 3,216 gold bars under the UN supervision, but these five bars might just have been hidden by someone who was unable to retrieve them afterward.
The 1949 tank is an outdated medium-sized vehicle holding a 100-millimeter main gun and a 12.7-millimeter machine gun, which is still being used by many armies in developing countries.
The gold bars found are estimated to be worth something from $1.2 million to $2.4 million!
Must have been a very hard decision to turn them in!