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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Hey! That’s My Panzer Tank

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (CN) - A collector paid $2.5 million for a World War II German Panzer IV Tank, but when it tried to pick it up the sellers refused to let go of it, the collector claims in court.

Vulcan Warbirds sued The Collings Foundation, Auctions America by RM, RM Auctions, and the Military Vehicle Technology Foundation, on Thursday in San Mateo County Court.

Vulcan Warbirds buys military vehicles and leases them to the Flying Heritage Collection, an Everett, Wash. museum.

Warbirds claims it has been looking for a good Panzer IV Tank for more than 5 years.

"Panzer IV tanks are extremely rare and seldom available for sale," Warbirds says, a statement that seems quite credible.

In July this year, Warbirds says, it "thought it had found the perfect Panzer IV Tank, one that had been part of the famous Littlefield Collection of tanks in Portola Valley, Calif."

The defendants offered to sell the tank for $2.5 million on July 18; Warbirds accepted the offer on July 24 and wired the money "the very next day," it says in the complaint.

"Yet when Warbirds went to pick up the Panzer IV Tank, defendants refused to turn over possession. The Panzer IV Tank remains at the Littlefield Collection in Portola Valley."

Warbirds wants the defendants ordered to turn over the tank, and damages for breach of contract, and violations of business law.

It is represented by Philip Gregory with Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, of Burlingame.

The Panzer IV was the most widely used German tank in World War II. Roughly 8,800 of them were made from 1936 to 1945.

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