I paid $35 shipped for this Mark III, "as is". the seller was not lying, it is missing a lot of parts but i was surprised it even had motors (I figured it must have motors as the front sprockets were still there). It is missing tracks, transmitter, cuppola, battery, and a few other things. I already have many of the parts from upgrading my King Tiger and Tiger 1 so I bought it. Tracks are on the way and so's a new cupola (the photos don't show it but the cuppola is mssing too).
I was surprised to find it has a metal gearbox, and metal sprockets. I hooked up the battery and dug out my old non S and S transmitter, which are luckily universal to the tk01 board which is what this one has. I was surprised to see the radio system, headlights and motors still work. I was planning on ripping out the old radio and just putting in my RX18. But since I can make the old system work though-I am going to just use it for a while! Until i HAVE to switch it out.
My guess is this tank wasn't used much. There are no wear marks on the bottom of the road wheels- the original black paint is still intact. The gears in the gearbox are dry of lubricant but unworn. Maybe it's just another tank that got driven once and put away in a closet til the owner got rid of it.
I sprayed it with a coat of grey primer-the factory grey plastic is the first thing to go. This tank won't be grey for long-too dull. I will do a sand gelb base plus one camo color, probably brown.
something like this is what i will paint it soon. I got this photo from google -mine doesn't look like this yet, still grey.
Nice project...especially since you have come accustomed to how the internals work...Think you will have fun with this one...that smoke deflector can be changed to a metal one should you choose to do it 
) I've got most of a couple of packs of small metal details for this tank from Forgebear so I will keep an eye out for needed items you might mention.
I like the choice of paint you have picked, keep posting pics 
