RANCHO DOMINGUEZ -- Just like that, they were gone.

And taking the place of tangible symbols of what are now admitted bribes was $94,625, headed to government coffers.

Thursday's very public auction in a vast, cold Los Angeles-area warehouse marked an unceremonious footnote to a scandal that brought down a congressman.

Furnishings that once adorned the Rancho Santa Fe home of former U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham are now in the hands of common folks -- if you can say that about people able to drop $10,000 on a 10-by-12-foot Persian rug with the mere wave of their bid card.

Of the 35 lots that made up the congressman's collection of forfeited goods, the rug was the priciest draw.

Despite the large mirrored armoires and the marble-topped sideboards -- most of them wood, most of them French and most of them circa 19th century -- it was the lawmaker's Persian rugs that landed the biggest bids. Even one with a stain in the center netted $4,800 for the government.

Most of the collection yielded final, government-accepted bids generally ranging from $1,000 to $4,000. Some garnered a little more, some a little less.

Bringing up the rear in the bidding were the folding rattan panels at $225.

Cunningham, who on Nov. 28 pleaded guilty to taking $2.4 million in bribes -- some of it in the form of the furniture sold at the government auction Thursday -- forfeited the antiques and rugs to the Internal Revenue Service.

The 64-year-old decorated Navy pilot resigned his seat three days after entering his plea.

Twenty days before the auction, a judge sentenced him to an eight-year, four-month term. He is now in a low-security federal prison in Butner, N.C.

The $94,625 from the sale of Cunningham's cache goes back into the Treasury Assets Forfeiture Fund, and will be split among the agencies that investigated Cunningham.

The government's take was "a little higher than we expected," said EG&G Technical Services spokeswoman Britney Sheehan. The government contracts with EG&G to run the public auctions.

"We are obviously very pleased," Sheehan said.

On Thursday, before Cunningham's assets hit the auction block, other items went first. There was a Rolex watch and a stone statue, there were the smuggled Tahitian cultured pearls -- all seized or forfeited by tax evaders, drug dealers and the like.

At sale time, auctioneer Paul Leiker set a fast pace, tossing out an opening bid and then quickly, repeatedly, muttering something completely unintelligible as he waited for buyers to bite.

Bidders listened hard. Leiker moved quickly -- and it took a while for first-time auctiongoers to condition themselves to make out the prices Leiker calls out between all his spewed "bedebedebedes." As he muttered into the mic, bidders frantically decided whether to pony up the extra hundred or so Leiker just added to the last bid, looking for takers.

OK, maybe he's not saying bedebedebede. Sheehan said she thinks it's something like "Whaddya bid to buy 'em, whaddya bid, whaddya bid?"

Oh. All right.

Still sounded like bedebedebede.

Some of the cooler buyers seem unfazed by Leiker. Emilio Viscomi of Dana Point -- who plopped down well over $25,000 to pick up six or seven of Cunningham's antiques -- easily waved his red bid card.

The ringmen -- workers scanning the audience for bidders and signaling the amounts back to Leiker -- figured out pretty quickly who the serious buyers were, such as Viscomi, and they stuck close.

All the while, reporters and camera crews scurried about, zeroing in on anyone eyeing the antiques lining the long wall on the back end of the large warehouse, located in the middle of an industrial district.

Viscomi gently shooed people out of his way -- "I need to bid on this one" -- as news reporters crowded him during the sale.

It was easy to get caught up in the bidding.

"I think we just thought it would be cool to get a piece of his stuff," said Tatia Metzger of Lake Elsinore, after buying an art deco lingerie cabinet for a final bid of $2,300.

"It's not our style," her husband, Tino Metzger, added. "I just wanted something. This might go up on eBay."

But they both agreed they will likely keep the cherrywood sleigh bed (king-size headboard and footboard with siderails and slats) they successfully bid on for $1,750.

Fidel Breto of the Riverside community of Moreno Valley attended the auction to get a non-Cunningham item: a helicopter (he sells the parts). Breto instead walked away with one of Cunningham's items, and said that the congressman "made his office an auction for his own agenda."

"What I was very proud of was to get something that didn't belong to him (to begin with)," Breto said, noting that Cunningham's cache came from bribery.

Valley Center resident Morgan Stewart said she had eyed a pair of nightstands, but at $3,400, "they went for more than I was willing to pay."

Instead, she plunked down $1,150 for a pair of blue glass candleholders.

"Frankly, if it hadn't been for Cunningham, for all the publicity, I wouldn't have bought it," she said.

Stewart wondered whether the congressman's notoriety brought out more bidders.

Spokeswoman Sheehan later said she thought it did, with about a 40 percent larger turnout than is usual at a government auction. More than 850 people registered to bid -- though not all were there for a piece of Cunningham's assets.

Others came specifically because of his saga.

Seated on a folding chair in the front row of the warehouse, "news correspondent" Paul Dinello waved his paddle -- a traditional bid-signaling device at a ritzy auction, and a device completely out of place among the red pieces of paper other bidders clutched. A willing-to-play-along Leiker looked down at the tuxedo-clad Dinello, noted his paddle, and told Dinello he was in the wrong place to play pingpong.

The "correspondent" was on hand to file a report for Comedy Central's satirical news program, "The Colbert Report," which field producer Liz Levin said will air within the next few weeks. She wouldn't say, however, what items Dinello may have snagged.

Little more than an hour after the bidding began, it was all gone. The armoire with sagging leading, the 32-foot Persian rug runner, the leaded glass lamp.

Each nightstand, each chest of drawers, had a new owner.

And with no pomp whatsoever, the sale moved on. Cartons of off-brand cigarettes seized by the ATF -- Sheehan wasn't sure why they were seized, or from whom -- were up next.

The warehouse, already busy with bidders, filled to standing room shortly after Cunningham's assets were sold off. In-the-know buyers were aware that a variety of seized cars always hit the auction block around 11 a.m.

By the end of the day, the new owner of the 32-foot Persian runner had taken the carpet. Gone, too, were the candelabras and the three-paneled rattan piece.

The rest must leave within a week. Auction policy.

Contact staff writer Teri Figueroa at (760) 631-6624 or tfigueroa@nctimes.com.