Like many who attended Jefferson County’s public surplus auction on Friday, Aug. 22, Joe Bartlett of Port Ludlow came for a truck.

“I knew the county vehicles were well-maintained,” Bartlett said after placing the top bid of $5,100 on a 2005 Dodge 2500, which he plans to use for his roofing business. “I think I got a fair deal.”

More than 100 items – from vehicles to street signs to bicycles and a large-format printer – were auctioned off, yielding about $86,000 for county coffers after paying 10 percent to James G. Murphy Co., a Kenmore, Washington–based auction company.

“We think we did well,” said Matt Stewart, fleet manager of the county’s Central Services Department. “This has been the first real opportunity for more than a decade to clear out old stock, damaged signs and things that wouldn’t be economical for us to move to the auctioneer’s yard.”

Stewart said it has been three years since the county sold any of its outdated vehicles and equipment, and more than a decade since the county has held an on-site public auction.

Revenue goes back to the department from which an auctioned item originated. Most items came from fleet services, though some came from the sheriff’s office, public works, the assessor’s office, community development, as well as Quilcene and Brinnon fire departments.

Bartlett’s two sons crawled through their dad’s new truck, inspecting its finer points, as several hundred others followed auctioneers down the line, bidding on former police cruisers, a firetruck and an electric car, to name a few.

“It’s kind of like a street fair out here,” said Rick Flores, 70, of Marrowstone Island. “The only thing missing is a hot dog stand.”

Flores said he came for a truck, but bids climbed higher than he could stomach. So he settled on a pile of treated sign posts, which he valued at about $300 after bidding half that amount. He said he planned to use the posts to build a fence on his 10-acre property.

Recently wedded Steve Stanelun and Melanie Cigler came looking for a vehicle, having moved here from Melbourne, Australia, a couple of weeks ago to attend the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding in Port Hadlock.

“It was very convenient that we could get it registered and drive it away all on the same day,” Stanelun said of the couple’s 1999 Chevy Tahoe, for which they bid $2,050.

He said the price might have been lower had Cigler not accidentally bid against him.

“This is her first auction,” said Stanelun. “She bid against me. She didn’t know.”

With their new vehicle paid for, he said, now all the couple must do is find a permanent home.

Gene Ketchum of Port Angeles also had hopes of bidding on a vehicle.

“It’s a gamble half the time,” he said. “I came down for the pickup trucks, but they went a little high.”

Ketchum came away with assorted chain saws and treated sign posts.

“The posts will be great for my dock,” he said, adding that he would likely resell the chain saws to a store. “I used to do this all the time, and stuff would sit in the garage for months before I’d sell them for less than I bought them.”

Twenty-year-old Kyle Pernsteiner bid $2,400 on a fire truck, but he was outbid by $100.

Ben Richardson of Port Hadlock bid $1,200 on the 2007 Ford Crown Victoria that a now-former sheriff’s deputy crashed in April 2013 on U.S. Highway 101 on Mount Walker.

Richardson said he is in the process of rebuilding a hot rod, so he plans to sell the vehicle’s body and salvage as many parts as possible for his project. Richardson also hoped to pick up some street signs on which he could practice welding with his new aluminum welder, but bundles of signs went for as much as $500, and he didn’t want to spend more than $100.

Roughly 200 people registered to take part in the auction, and another 15 or so participated live online.

“I could have sat at home and did this,” said Joe Kenyon of Port Townsend, standing with help from a pair of crutches. “I didn’t realize it was online, too.”

Kenyon said he also came for a truck, but others outbid him.

“I’ve been scouting this out for three weeks,” he said, adding that he perused items at the county shop the day before. “The county is making out good today.”

Bob and Karen Loid of Center, Washington, also perused items on the day prior to the auction. They said the Aug. 22 event was the first public auction they had attended in many years.

“Most of this stuff was way too expensive,” said Karen Loid. “If they made our taxes go down, that would be nice, but that’s not going to happen.”

Bob Matthews, 61, of Quilcene bid $75 on six bicycles and a motor scooter, which he sold to another man for $27.50.

“I usually give half of it away,” said Matthews, who uses a walker and said he would likely give many of the bikes away. “I like tinkering. The fun is in fixing things up.”

Stewart said he expects another public auction at the county shop late next year, autumn at the earliest.

“We’ve held back on replacements,” he said. “We plan to replace a lot of antiquated equipment and vehicles in the next 12 months.”

He said many attendees told him they would like the next auction to be staged on a Saturday, rather than a Friday, but Stewart said Friday works well enough.

“We tend to get bigger spenders on a weekday, because a lot of this equipment will get reused and recycled by businesspeople, and they're the ones working on weekdays,” he said. “We’re looking at an empty lot here as far as overflow of parts and equipment is concerned.”