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The Moscow Times
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Making a Buck by Selling Old T-34s
By Lyuba Pronina
Staff Writer
In his collection of 220 military vehicles, Jacques Littlefield has a dozen
Soviet models, including T-34 and Josef Stalin-3 tanks, and he is always on the
lookout for more.
Littlefield, a self-described "tank nerd" whose collection sits on his
188-hectare ranch in Silicon Valley, California, receives offers over the
Internet
from people in Russia and Ukraine. But the offers fall through because the
sellers cannot easily ship the vehicles or do not have what they are
advertising,
said Littlefield, whose late father, Edmund Littlefield, amassed a $1.7
billion fortune in construction and mining.
Enter Rosoboronexport, the state arms export agency, which has started
exploring the possibility of selling World War I and II hardware from Defense
Ministry warehouses to collectors and museums.
"It is an attractive market, and we cannot stand aside," said Rosoboronexport
spokesman Alexander Uzhanov. "There is a growing number of requests from
Austria, Britain, Germany, Finland and the United States for historical models,
so
we decided to team up with the Defense Ministry and see what we can sell from
the stockpiles."
Up for grabs are anything from uniforms and small arms to T-34 tanks, ZiS-3
76mm artillery guns and Maxim machine guns. The hardware would be available in
deactivated condition and in original and export versions.
Foreign armament would include German Mauser and Walther pistols, American
and British models of Colt pistols, Thompson submachine guns, Lee-Enfield
rifles, and German Tiger and Panther tanks — all of which were captured as war
trophies or acquired under the American Lend-Lease program.
Rosoboronexport refused to put a price tag on any of the equipment, or say
how much money it hopes to earn from the new business. The company, which was
set up four years ago, saw its revenues soar to a post-Soviet record of $5.1
billion last year, mainly from sales of fighter jets.
"These weapons will not go at dumping prices," Uzhanov said.
Sergei Zharov, leader of a group of military enthusiasts in Tver who scour
World War II battlefields in search of the remains of fallen Soviet soldiers and
collect Soviet and Nazi weapons, said prices will depend on how many of each
type of weapon are in Defense Ministry stockpiles and their condition.
A T-34 could fetch up to $20,000, while a Maxim machine gun could sell for up
to $2,000 and a PPSh 7.62mm submachine gun could go for about $400, Zharov
said.
The T-34 was the workhorse of Soviet armor divisions during World War II and
for many Russians it symbolizes the Soviet military might in that war. More
T-34s were produced during the war than any other tank, according to Soviet
figures.
The Maxim was a legendary submachine gun that shot to fame in World War I and
was used extensively by both sides in the Civil War. It was still in service
in the Red Army when World War II began.
Uzhanov said Rosoboronexport has not advertised its expansion into old
weapons yet and has just started compiling a catalog to be published later this
year. The company expects the new line to generate interest in light of upcoming
celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany in
May.
"These arms bear the image of our victory, our heroic past. We plan to
increase arms sales, so why not use up these reserves as well?" Uzhanov said.
When a reporter told Littlefield about Rosoboronexport's venture, he greeted
the news with enthusiasm. "It is a very nice development for me as a
collector. If I had a contact there, I'd phone the next business day,"
Littlefield said
by telephone from Portola Valley, California.
Littlefield's collection of military vehicles includes 66 tanks dating from
World War II through the 1980s and is second perhaps only to the Russian armed
forces' own collection at the Kubinka tank museum in the Moscow region. The
museum has 290 vehicles, including 129 Soviet models.
Littlefield has more than a dozen Soviet-designed tanks, but none of them has
come directly from Russia.
"They have been obtained from two sources — either from satellite countries
in the old Eastern Bloc like Czechoslovakia and Poland, which had large stocks
of Soviet-made vehicles, or from the stocks of Arab countries captured during
wars with Israel, or, more lately, in Iraq," said Mike Stallwood, a British
dealer who helped Littlefield acquire some of the weapons in his collection.
Littlefield said he paid $25,000 for a T-34 that was captured by the Germans
and later sent to Britain. He also has a Josef Stalin-3 from Egypt that cost
him $35,000.
Both Littlefield and Stallwood expressed interest in working with
Rosoboronexport, saying it would be easier to work with an official institution
than with
small-time traders.
"They are an official company, and I would trust them more than an individual
company. But I would start slowly with them to see if they can deliver,"
Littlefield said.
He suggested that Rosoboronexport brings tanks to Britain to help spread the
word worldwide about their availability.
"You can get better prices if you have a T-34 sitting in England where you
can see it, touch it, drive it, rather than in Moscow," he said.
Stallwood added: "It is possible that a commercial organization in Russia,
especially with government approval, could run a profitable business selling
collectors' military vehicles and equipment on the international market.
However,
because armor and guns are involved, this is a sensitive issue that would
require handling discretely and within international laws."
This is where Rosoboronexport's plans run against a wall. The company for now
can only sell arms to companies and organizations that have government-issued
licenses.
"There is an understanding in Rosoboronexport that the procedure has to be
liberalized," said Uzhanov, the spokesman. "It may require a presidential decree
to declassify these arms in order not to have to go after government
permission for every deal."
Even if Rosoboronexport ends up being allowed to sell to collectors like
Littlefield, it will not make a lot of money off of the sales, said Marat
Kenzhetayev of the Center for Arms Control, a Moscow-based think tank. "They
will not
see people rushing to buy these relics. For the most part, demand was
satisfied in the early 1990s — and not by Russia."
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