I heard about this some years ago, the auction was in 1996.jesus.
That must have been the largest Stutz collection in private hands in the world. All rusting in a rundown barn. And I bet most of the money went to the IRS. Guys like that usually die and leave massive unpaid tax and other bills.
Such insanity is not as unusual as you might think, either, sad to say. This reminds me of a story I read about long ago.
There was a guy in Phoenix named Arkie Schueter (sp?). He ran the only auto-parts store in town that was open 24 hours. Got lots of trucker business. Everyone in the neighborhood thought he was just another crazy old man who was always poor and ranting about the evils of government and taxes (Phoenix is crawling with people like this).
Arkie died of a heart attack while being cross-examined during a civil trial [in 1986 I think, he was being sued by an ex-employee for unpaid overtime or something]. No relatives or will, so the sheriff went onto Arkie's property to look for assets to sell to cover the tax and legal bills.
They found something like $750,000 in small bills hidden all over the lot. A drum of waste oil that sat right next to the street contained $400,000 in cash, carefully double wrapped in plastic bags. What a clever place to hide money--who in his right mind would hide valuables in a drum of waste oil...the neighborhood was mostly poor and black, and NOBODY had any idea what was in the drum.
Arkie didn't trust banks, and hated taxes. (Guess who got the cash.)
This is why you SPEND IT before you die!....