Robert and Sharon Atkins came for the cigar-store Indian and left with a curio cabinet.

Marty Fleck came for restaurant equipment and left with an airport-style X-ray machine.

They were among 561 bidders who turned out Tuesday for the first general state surplus auction in three years, held at the Pennsylvania Farm Show complex.

The auction lasted eight hours and brought in $78,000 to help depleted state coffers.

Bidders snapped up - at deep discounts - thousands of items that had been gathering dust in state warehouses, the result of equipment upgrades, overstocks, shuttered state properties, and drug seizures.

Bringing top dollar by midday Tuesday was a 1990 Jeep Grand Cherokee - once a drug dealer's ride - that went for $5,000.

Mike Bowman and Deb Riggleman of East Berlin said they consider themselves part of the die-hard auction culture in Central Pennsylvania, traveling to fire halls and warehouses every weekend for bargains, mostly on stuff they don't need.

Bowman, 49, grew up attending auctions with relatives and boasted of a great deal he got recently on a few cases of Tiger Woods signature Gatorade after "Tiger's troubles," he said.

He and Riggleman were shopping for a television from the Attorney General's Office drug-seizure corner. They'd recently downsized from a house to a mobile home, but there's always room for a big-screen TV, Riggleman said.

The Atkinses, from Columbia, waited four hours for a cigar-store Indian, only to be outbid by someone who took it home for $1,500.

But the trip was not for naught. The couple took home another piece that once adorned a drug dealer's house.

"We got a wood curio cabinet for $50. Can you believe it?" said Robert Atkins.

Matt Anderson, who came from Carlisle, figures he hit the mother lode.

The 28-year-old is hoping to open a tattoo parlor later this year. By noon, he had all but outfitted his business for a whopping $55.

He snapped up a couple of computer desks, chairs, even a retro faux-leather "fainting" couch that he figures is perfect for applying body art.

Marty Fleck of Elizabethtown went into online sales after his auction business floundered in 2006. Now he travels throughout the East buying up restaurant equipment, furniture, and other big lots and flipping the merchandise on eBay.

Fleck says he will make a substantial profit on what he thinks is a five-figure X-ray machine he picked up for $100.

He passed on the boxes of oversize men's underwear (unused) from the state prisons. "They were all size 54 and 56," said Fleck. "I suppose someone could use them for duffel bags."

Steve Rice, who operates Rice Trucking in Dallastown, bought a pile of indistinguishable metal for $175. Under the rusty film was a collection of valuable snowplow parts.

What's the retail price tag on the parts?

"It depends," said Rice, who operates snowplows on contract with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. "If it's the middle of a snowstorm, it could be $1,000."

Nick DeLuca, who owns Chloe's Corner, a water-ice and snack shop in Manayunk, said he got a great deal on two Vulcan deep fryers that retail for more than $1,000 each. He said he'd use one to replace his broken unit and sell the other.

"I got them both for $325," DeLuca said. "It was well worth the trip."