EVERETT – Mike Stanton, the proud owner of a 1963 Sting Ray, is always on the prowl for model Corvettes.
On Saturday, the Everett man took home several Corvettes among the 560 cars he bought.
Stanton, 58, bid $7,000 in a silent auction to take home a die-cast car collection that had been donated to the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2100 in Everett. The set was valued at $40,000 by a computer programmer who donated it last year.
Stanton is a member of the local VFW post. His son, Aaron Stanton, said his father plans to keep the Corvettes in the collection and sell the rest.
“He heard about this, and he heard it was going to a good cause,” Aaron Stanton, 32, said.
The collection contains 560 die-cast vehicles, including classic cars, race cars, antique cars, roadsters, dragsters, motorcycles, pickups and big rigs. There was a set of fire engines, a small Volkswagen bus and even a military tank.
The shiny vehicles were spread out over more than a dozen tables in the VFW hall. There wasn’t enough room to unpack all of them.
Gary Vantrece, a member of the VFW post, said his favorite die-cast car was a baby blue 1965 Mustang.
“I used to own one of those cars, but mine was dark blue,” said Vantrece, who lives in Marysville.
Gene Fosheim, 56, of Everett inspected the collection but left without placing a bid. He only collects a certain scale of die-cast car, and he prefers models built in the late 1960s.
“That was the golden age of American racing,” Fosheim said. “It was Ford against Ferrari.”
The Everett VFW post has fallen on hard financial times, said Rob Jorgensen, the post’s senior vice commander. The $7,000 from Saturday’s auction will help, he said.
“It will help us keep our doors open until we can move on,” Jorgensen said.
Reporter Scott Pesznecker: 425-339-3436 or spesznecker@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
