HARRISBURG -- Five thousand corkscrews. A hundred pairs of fur-lined handcuffs. A dozen blenders. Four chainsaws. A suture-removal kit. Three thousand pairs of scissors. One pink horseshoe.

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All were left behind at airports across the Northeast and all have made their way to a warehouse in Harrisburg where the state sorts them and sells them on eBay.

"It's amazing what we find," said Ken Hess, director of the state bureau of supplies and surplus operations.

Some items, such as nail clippers and pocket knives, are things travelers were forced to surrender before boarding planes. Some, such as a 6-foot artificial palm tree and a 250-pound car engine, apparently were too big or heavy to be carried on. And others, such as sunglasses and children's toys, were left behind by absent-minded travelers.

Together, they have yielded the state more than $247,000 in revenue in less than two years.

The Transportation Security Administration releases the items to states that request them, giving priority to those where the airports are located. The goods arrive -- an average of 21,000 pounds' worth every month -- in trailers driven by student truck drivers at the Lancaster Career and Technical School. The biggest shipments come from Newark International Airport and from Kennedy and LaGuardia in New York City. Goods also arrive from Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Cleveland, Allentown and Syracuse airports.

Recent deliveries included frying pans, a caulking gun, an ornate curtain rod, Virgin Mary nail clippers, a roll of undeveloped film, a hand tool inscribed "To Lou: Happy 50th birthday," and a fishing trophy from Cayuga Lake, N.Y.

"Some of it really makes you wonder," Mr. Hess said, recalling a meat grinder that was part of one shipment. Then he picked up a spiked leather belt.

"We get a lot of S&M stuff. There's whips we've gotten and even cat o' nine tails that I guess people beat each other with, and there's tons and tons of furry handcuffs," he said.

In another area of the warehouse, worker Mike Whitman, 34, is sorting weapons.

"Here's how we know the airport screeners are doing their jobs," Mr. Hess said as he perused a dagger, a combat knife, a replica of a World War II K-Bar and a serrated knife with a pistol grip.

"These are pretty serious knives. These were made to kill somebody," he said. "People carry some pretty dangerous stuff."

Mostly, though, the contraband is more innocuous. Sorters find butter knives, letter openers, gardening tools, wedding-cake serving sets and putty knives.

The flotsam and jetsam arrive in Harrisburg -- mixed with toy guns, fishing hooks and hockey pucks -- in plastic totes or 55-gallon drums. They are sorted into lots, photographed, logged on the eBay auction site, boxed and shipped to the highest bidder.

Recently, one eBayer picked up 35 pounds of scissors for $34 plus shipping. Another bought 100 pocket knives for $55.55.

The highest single bid to date was $595 from a buyer in Torrance, Calif., for 39 pounds of Swiss Army knives.

Buyers are from as near as the warehouse's own Harrisburg ZIP code and as far as Palmer, Alaska.

Dennis Kolva, of Ithaca, N.Y., is a repeat buyer. He picks through mingled lots of Swiss Army knives and Leatherman tools, replaces any missing parts, then sells the best of the bunch on his Web site, SmartKnives.com.

That's too much hassle and too little yield for the state, but it works for dealers like Mr. Kolva, Mr. Hess said.

"Shipping costs of individual items ruins the attractiveness of the bargain," he said. "The value we provide is sorting and repackaging."

The innovative surplus program helps everyone from consumers to distributors to taxpayers, say its users.

"It's a great way to get items back into circulation that would otherwise sit in storage and it also generates some revenue, which reduces taxes by a smidgen for Pennsylvania residents," Mr. Kolva said.

The program even helps reduce the state's worker's compensation premiums by rotating in injured employees who can't perform their regular jobs but can handle lighter-duty sorting.

Mr. Whitman, for example, injured his back installing a door in the state's Health and Human Services Building and hasn't yet recovered enough to return to his carpentry job.

"These are people who can't lift and climb, but we put them back to work," Mr. Hess said. "They don't have to be on their feet all day. They can sit and sort."

That's an important offshoot of the surplus-sales program, said Kate Philips, spokeswoman for Gov. Ed Rendell.

"The governor put this program in place as a way to generate some extra revenue for the state," she said. "As the program was cultivated, he was encouraged that the state was able to keep folks who otherwise would be forced to collect workman's compensation on the job."

Mr. Hess, a former manager for Kmart Corp., keeps value and marketing in mind as he and his staff prepare goods for auction.

For hunting season, he packaged together sets that included a multipurpose Leatherman tool, a gut slitter, a hunting knife, a pocket knife, a flash light, a rope and a giant safety pin for tagging deer.

He also has put together sets of hand tools, gardening tools and fishing tackle.

Now, he's saving found hockey equipment until the Stanley Cup finals, when he'll package them into sets of sticks, pucks and masks.

"We're going to have a sporting goods extravaganza soon," he said shaking a box of pucks. "It's all in the marketing. It's how you put things together. Hell, we could even try his-and-hers blenders."

There, too, are one-of-a-kind items that defy packaging such as the single right shoe, the propane tank, the hand grenade with explosives removed, and the red brick inscribed with the words "bathroom pass."

"You get a cross-section, a real snapshot of traveling America," Mr. Hess said.