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SALT LAKE CITY -- Have you ever had a need for a street sweeper? Perhaps you wanted to buy stolen items legally? There's an auction this weekend that lets people do just that.
TNT Public Auction is helping government agencies and others get rid of their stuff by auctioning it off both Friday and Saturday.
Friday's auction featured stolen items and evidence recovered by Salt Lake City police that has been left unclaimed. There were also bicycles and used computers.
On Saturday cars, trucks and a variety of heavy machinery from local government agencies and others will hit the auction block.
Auction president Mike McKee says TNT holds these auction four times a year in Salt Lake.
"Almost every sale, we end up with something that we've never seen or heard of before," McKee says.
This auction's strange item is a giant-size snow plow McKee thinks came from Europe and was used in Canada. The plow is designed to clear entire roads with one pass and is used on long stretches out in the country where plow drivers go out in pairs and drive for days straight.
Other items include street sweepers, dump trucks and repossessed tractors of various types.
McKee says they also auction off luggage left unclaimed from Salt Lake International Airport.
"Sometimes we see suitcases. We see different things that people are packing in their bags that, at some point, they can't identify whose they are out of lost and found, so here they are," McKee says.
He says there's a wide range of people that show up to the auctions.
"We see people that return every auction, that are kind of auction hounds," McKee says. "They get almost addicted to it. It becomes entertainment and a social event. And we get new people all the time as well."
Saturday's auction will be held at TNT's Salt Lake facility, located at 2323 N. Redwood Road. The auction begins at 9 a.m. and will end at 5 p.m.
For more information on the auctions, CLICK HERE.
E-mail: rjeppesen@ksl.com
