As I mentioned in the news section last week, every once in a while the state makes a few bucks by selling off a giant Salem warehouse full of seized property, unneeded police evidence and outdated government equipment. The biggest one of these government yard sales was scheduled for Saturday, June 5, so of course I borrowed a truck and headed to Salem. The scene at the official Oregon Surplus Property warehouse was crazier than I could have imagined.

Items for sale included: A go-kart, a box marked "evidence" full of Kris Kristofferson tapes, a podium from Wilsonville city hall, a dining table sized pallet of desktop computers, tons of crappy mountain bikes and genuine police sirens. Groups of bargain-seekers swirled around these treasures, taking breaks only to eat one of the $2 plates of "El Nachos" for sale in the corner of the vast warehouse.

I picked up some bookshelves from the Portland Police and then spotted something better: a box of about 20 public-school issue world maps. I unrolled a few charts of North America's climate cycles until a big burly walked up and informed me he'd purchased the whole lot. I offered to buy one off him right there, we haggled over a price (I said $5, he said $10) and he told me to meet him in the parking lot to buy the North America political map under the table like.

The guy gave his name as Fabian and turned out to be a professional junk dealer. For a wheeler-dealer, he was pretty chatty. "I came here thinking this would be amateur hour," he said. "It's worse than I thought it would be."

"You want to know the rules of becoming a junk dealer?" he stated. Of course.
"Rule number one: Don't become a junk dealer. Rule number two: Listen to rule number one," said Fabian. "Rule number three: Only buy for next to nothing. If you're not laughing about how cheap it is and how much money you're going to make, don't buy it. Rule number four: Be able to lift heavy things."

I took my map and handed over $7 cash, a worse-than-amateur.

More photos of items for sale at the state yard sale below the cut.