@LHoffman:
Also, I noticed that a few of the vehicles say “This Lot is a registered Destructive Device…” and that special qualifications are needed to bid on it.
I assume this means the weapon(s) on it are still functional in some capacity?
What fun is having a tank if the gun doesn’t work?  :x  Getting ammunition might be problematic though.
They could be refering to the fact that a tank whose engine and running gear are operational can still do an awful lot of damage without firing a shot, as is spectacularly demonstrated in the James Bond film Goldeneye. But perhaps they mean that its main gun hasn’t been rendered fully inoperable (by whatever standard applies for such a weapon to be considered completely harmless). Thermite grenades were very handy for jobs like that in WWII: they could melt the breech mechanism of a big artillery piece and turn it into useless junk.
I agree that a tank whose main gun can’t go kaboom wouldn’t be as enjoyable as one that could at least fire blanks (to say nothing about one that could fire real shells), but I’d still be happy owning one if I had the required space and money. I once had the pleasure of sitting with a friend of mine in the two aimer seats of a 40mm Bofors AAA mounting whose elevation and deflection hand cranks still worked perfectly. We spent about a minute swinging the gun up and down and all around, aiming at one nearby building after another. It didn’t shoot (obviously), but we had a ball nonetheless. I was surprised at how quickly and easily this big piece of hardware responded to our hand cranking. Great fun.
It’s too bad the sellers want real cash. In A&A, you can pick up a decent Sherman for just a few IPCs.
