State of CA ebay auction (lots of knives and leatherman)

hmmm going up with some friends to sacramento tomorrow to check out the california garage sale. friend said they selling surplus items and items confiscated at the airports. he also said that there was a mustang there too i think. wonder if they are offering the same item as this ebay auction.
 
a deadly fart said:
hmmm going up with some friends to sacramento tomorrow to check out the california garage sale. friend said they selling surplus items and items confiscated at the airports. he also said that there was a mustang there too i think. wonder if they are offering the same item as this ebay auction.
Click to expand...

I just ran into a fellow, at a local knife show, that had a lot of odds and ends knives for sale. He acquired them all from an ebay auction of all airport confiscated blades.
 
Does anyone else in the forum find the garage sale disposal of personal property from airport patdowns a bit troubling? Remember this isn't property that the original owner decided was absolete or taking up too much room in the garage - - rather this includes gifts from loved ones and cherished property items that had to be surrendered to airport security.

Consider how you'd feel if that jacket you grabbed at the last minute on the way to the airport turned out to have your favorite Benchmade or Chris Reeve folder in the pocket. Choosing between making your business flight or going back home to leave the knife, you gulp and let the marshal take your cherished blade and it goes into the heap along with the other hapless soul's knives.

Pic of some of the knives confiscated, appearing in Sacramento Bee newspaper
14.jpg


Course if you want to buy back that anniversary folder your thoughtful wife purchased, with the sterling scales and engraving, you have to bid on the whole lot of ten to sixty knives. And, you have to bid against others looking for bargain property or trying to recover their sentimental items too.

Spoils of a checkpoint, E-Bay current bid's at $177.50
16.jpg

I have only once forgotten about a blade left in an overcoat as I went through airport security. My Kershaw Leek is no collector's item, but I value the knife a lot, and would be very unhappy if it ended up confiscated. Luckily, the Marshal was a real gent, and retrieved my check-in bag and let me put the knife in it, admitting that he, "would hate to lose a knife like that if it was his." But the experience let me appreciate how unhappy some other less fortunate folks probably felt when they saw their favorite blade taken away for ever. Now, parading this private property on E-Bay for the world to bid on, is just adding insult to injury.

This sucks I say.
 
I agree with TT2Toes; it seems to me that, when it comes to selling items confiscated in airports, the Cali gov't. is capitalizing on people's misfortune. That's just wrong. Instead of confiscating and re-selling knives and other cutting objects, they should simply allow people to put their knife/object on hold until they return. It isn't rocket science or anything :rolleyes:
 
was at the garage sale today ... found a small SOG knife and a crkt kiss style knife with the gold on it. $5 each. good prices. there were a lot of swiss army knives and multi tools. the knife selection i thought was ******. alot of stuff from china. saw quite a few gerbers. the kershaws i saw were not automatics. there were schrades and some bucks. alot of the knives i thought were in poor condition. there was also tools, computer monitors, tables and what nots. i saw a guy haul off some sort of street food cart. but yeah it looks like most of the knives in good condition went to ebay. i did show up in the afternoon when the sale started at 9am so maybe folks before me had already picked up the good stuff. i ended up not buying anything because there was a long 2-3hr line for check out. even with seven cashiers the line was moving really really slow. but yeah the multi tools were at such dirt cheap prices that people could make quite a bit by reconditioning them and selling them on ebay.
 
I can sympathize with someone who's lost a knife, but having one confiscated at an airport is your own fault. The new guidelines are no secret(even if they suck!), If the "cherished folder' holds so much sentimental,or monetary value,
skip the flight! Otherwise, you are CHOOSING to surrender it.

Just my .02..

B.G.
 
I can understand BGF's point, strictly speaking, ignorance of the law is no excuse.
Still, at least for me, I know I am prone to forgetfullness. Whether keys, wallet, or pocket knife - - I often misplace them and have to seach round the house for them. So, my trouble with the auctioning of these knives is for those folks like me that occasionally forget what's in their pocket; keys, wallets, pocketknife, etc., who are not criminals but yet are having their personal property confiscated. Keep in mind, this stuff they're auctioning off (either at the warehouse or E-bay) is not from any criminals - - but law abiding citizens. The property taken from the criminals is locked up in some evidence locker.

I wish the airlines and federal marshals would let the passenger fill out a luggage tag and stick it on the offending property (e.g. knife) and hold it at their baggage claim office. Even if I have to pay a $5 or $10 baggage claim fee to recover my property on the return flight, it'd be better than losing it forever.

TT2Toes
(my $177.50 worth)
 
I just reread my post, and it's definitely harsher sounding than I intended,
because as you say these items weren't taken from criminals,,,AND I'm also an idiot with a poor memory!
I think the idea of having a baggage claim, or maybe even conveiniently placed lockers? may be a great solution.

B.G.
 
WHat is the technical term for the selling of stolen property? Fencing? Is that the one? Is that not (technically) what they're doing?

My sister had to give up a bullet keychain she had to get on a flight to make a funeral after 9/11 (not related to the events of that day) because it was on her car keys, had been for many years. Never occurred to her that they'd see a dummy bullet as a threat. And her options were to either hand it over or mail it back to herself. As she had a flight to catch, and the stupid bullet didn't cost that much to begin with, she decided it'd be too much hassle and $$ to mail it home. I'm sure if she'd known, she'd have removed the stupid thing before she left for the airport. I've always wondered what they thought she was gonna do with a bullet that had a pile of keys attached to it.
 
Troubling or not I went to bidslammer and put in a number of bids. Some prices are awfully cheap and it seems clear that some of these were CA purchases that never got handed out or whatever the original plan --- too many "matched sets" to all fit the airport theft profile.
 
fracmeister
Gotta be some other explanation. Cal State Employees can't purchase items like that for themselves using State funds. Only if it was to become part of some toolbox/equipment in a State vehicle could pocket knife purchases be justified - - and that'd be unlikely. Course I don't know what the rules are for all Cal State agencies, just the Resource agencies like Fish n Game, Forestry, Water Resources, etc.

TT2Toes
 
The law is the law and if you forgot your 300 dollar folder was in your pocket, well shame on you for not being prepared, What I used to do when I traveled alot was carry a prepaid fed ex or postal envelope and mail my knife home.

Some Airports are offering those same services albeit at a inflated price, but hey at least they give you an option.

What gets me about the Ebay auctions with the confiscated items, is that the confiscated items sell for more than they are usually worth, there are 2 leathermans listed at $107 dollars right now, while at another aution, actually several other autions between $10 and $25 now.

It's the auction fever mentality that drives me insane.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top