Bargains for the Highest Bidder : Auction: Estate merchandise ranging from cellos to chairs goes on the block, plus unclaimed stolen goods and items from drug dealers.

The auction hadn’t even started yet, and Holly Ralston was walking away empty-handed.

“We’d like to stay but there’s too many people and not enough seats,” Ralston said as she and mother-in-law Linda Hurt left the Ventura County Government Center warehouse Saturday morning. “It’s too bad, because they have everything from A to Z in there.”

Ralston and Hurt had already stopped at three garage sales on their way down from Ojai, and they planned to hit a few more on their way home.

But for more than 300 bargain hunters, the county auction in Ventura was the place to be on Saturday.

“This is the biggest I’ve seen at the Government Center,” said auctioneer Shirley Needles, who with her daughter, Cathy, works about 50 events a year.

From paintings to pool tables, cellos to chairs, Walkmans to washing machines, about 90% of the auction’s wares came from estates being liquidated by the public administrator, Needles said. The rest was unclaimed stolen property recovered by the Sheriff’s Department and--for the first time--items seized from drug dealers by the district attorney’s office.

Some of the drug dealers lived pretty well, judging by the booty on the auction block: a carved rosewood dining table and chairs, matching hutch, exercise machine, and Oriental rugs, among other things.

But much of the merchandise--especially the old books, dishes and bric-a-brac that filled countless cardboard boxes--only proved the adage that one man’s trash is another’s treasure, if the price is right.

“I’ve got an Amway water treatment demo kit,” Needles announced to an audibly disappointed crowd. “Hey, we sell anything. . . . Who’ll give me a five-dollar bill? I’ve got $5. Who’ll give $7.50? I’ve got $7.50. Sold!”

Needles tried to put the best possible face on another item that drew derisive groans: a collection of the works of Scientology guru L. Ron Hubbard.

“Hey, people pay thousands of dollars for this stuff,” she said. “Who’ll give me $25?”

Nobody, it turned out, when the bidding started. But after dropping the opening bid to $5, Needles started getting a few nibbles and finally hooked a buyer. Price: $25.

With hundreds of items on the block, Needles maintained a pace of about two sales a minute. “I talk so they can understand,” she said. “I don’t want to intimidate them.”

And sometimes she saved novice buyers from making costly mistakes.

“Oops, you’re raising your own bid,” she told one overly eager customer. “I’ll tell you when you do that--and believe me, not all auctioneers do.”

At times, the patter was like poetry.

“Somebody give me a $20 bill to start this thing,” she said as the first item--a girl’s bicycle--went on the block just after 10 a.m. “I’ve got $20, somebody give me a quarter. . . . Now 30. I have 35, somebody give me 40. Somebody give me 40. I’ve got 40, 45. I need a $50 bill. I’ve got 50, 55, 60 . . . I’ve got $90 . . . 95, anyone? I’ve got 95. I need a $100 bill. Anyone for 105? Sold for $100.”

The money from the estate sales will go to the heirs, minus fees charged by the public administrator. Sales of sheriff’s unclaimed property will go into the county general fund, while the proceeds of district attorney’s seizures will be returned to law enforcement.

Cathy Needles declined to say how much her firm--J & J Auction Co.--is paid, but a spokeswoman for the city of Ventura said the company gets 15% to handle similar sales for the city.

Some people got carried away by the frenzied pace of the bidding Saturday, judging by the comments of veteran auction-goers after a 1983 Toyota Tercel--the only automobile on sale--went for $2,700.

“Whew!” Philip Cail said as the bidding passed $2,000. “He doesn’t even know what’s wrong with it,” he said, referring to the sold-as-is, buyer-beware terms of all sales. “Wait till he wakes up in the morning.”

Cail, an Oxnard resident who runs a flea market stand at Ventura College on weekends, said he would have picked up the car if the price had been closer to $1,000.

“I buy anything and everything,” Cail said. As it turned out, he bought two bicycles, one for $10 and the other for $12.50.

“Look at this, for 10 bucks,” he said, marveling at his good fortune. “These mountain bikes are pretty hot right now.”

At the flea market, Cail said, “I’ll try to sell them in a hurry, probably for $25 apiece.”

T.J. Jolicoeur bought two pool tables for $30 apiece. “I was willing to go as high as $100,” he confided afterward.

Alas, his home cannot accommodate one table, much less two.

“I live on a boat,” he explained adding that he would give one table to a friend and the other to “a boys club or something.”

“How can you pass up a bargain?”