We had a visit from the eponymous Bud Ward last week, who we widely found to be one of the nicest, low-key guys in the (auction) business. When we asked him what he had going on, he mentioned they’d recently ended up - via a bankruptcy - with an armored car consigned to their September auction in Little Rock, and he really couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

Sure, it’s an International, and armored International are still a “cash-in-transit” staple, but we’re not talking Navistars here—this is International’s 1935 C-30 offering (yes Dan, I’m sorry it isn’t a ’36, which was when their COE line debuted).

If we’re reading the title correctly, this is a seven-ton model - only the largest 10-ton C-30 was a six-wheeler. Our reference materials suggest that means it uses International’s own 213-cu.in. HD-3 OHV straight-six engine. A four-speed was standard, but Bud reports this one’s a three-cogger, which may just mean it’s dropped a gear, or might mean there are major driveline changes. Interestingly, the steel spoke wheels were an option - discs, which I would have thought more suitable for the avoirdupois, were optional. On the other hand, Mack was using steel spoke wheels in 10-ton-plus models a decade earlier. Given that this was once owned by the Fed, there’s probably a record of its purchase enshrined in the National Archives somewhere. We’d suggest starting at William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum in Little Rock.

Bud was kind of wondering if we could shed any light on what it was worth, but all the attention is on the later COEs. Even if there were some recent sales, we doubt they were of armored trucks with “Little Rock Branch Federal Reserve Bank” on the sides