TEMECULA - The ratta-tat-tat of dollar figures peppered the crowd at the front of the warehouse Saturday morning as countless rows of Pac-Man and pinball machines stretched out behind them, waiting for new homes.

It was an auction, of course, and it drew arcade-game collectors from Corona, San Diego and points beyond. The calls for bids rose above $3,000 - and occasionally edged back when no bidder flipped up his numbered card. Many were also lower, aimed at the large crowd of amateur gamers who showed up for their first terminal or two.

Lot 101 was one of several dozen pinball machines lined up to the bidders' right.

"Here you go, next one here, Twilight Zone pinball! Eighteen-eighteen-eighteen hundred," Robert Storment called.

A card flipped up in front. And then another from a man off to Storment's left. Three ringmen alongside Storment shouted and pointed at each new bidder.

"Nineteen-nineteen hundred," Storment continued. "Twenty-one hundred! Now twenty-five hundred … How's twenty-five hundred?"

Another card went up.

"Three-thousand-three-thousand-three-thousand! Three thousand. Three thousand? Twenty-eight fifty? Twenty-seven fifty?"

The man at Storment's left raised his card again and nodded.

"Okay, give it to him," Storment said. "Twenty-seven fifty. Merry Christmas."

Super Auctions, of Huntington Beach, runs auctions throughout Southern California. The one Saturday morning took care of 492 games, including many classic models dating from the 1980s, that a local arcade deemed surplus. The arcade's owner didn't allow Super Auctions to release its name.

The pinball machines ran the gamut of themes from western movies to rock bands and haunted houses.

Storment, who was wearing a midnight-blue suit jacket with a denim-colored shirt and a pink-and-gray-flecked necktie, handled them all, at some points three within a minute. He paused briefly to sip from his can of Red Bull energy drink.

"Guns N' Roses pinball! When was the last time you saw one of these? Onlymadetwothousandof'em! Brandspankingnew! Two-thousand?" Several cards shot up.

"Four-thousand?" No takers.

"Three-thousand? Again, none.

"Two-thousand? Two-thousand? Two-thousand?" A couple of takers. Storment pointed to one.

"Twenty-one hundred? Will you do twenty-one hundred?"

A girl of 6 or 7 in the second row stretched, with one arm in the air.

"Are you bidding two-thousand, darlin'?"

Another bidder got it for two-thousand.

David Moyes, of Corona, paid $2,200 for an Addams Family-themed pinball machine. Moyes said he planned to resell it for as much as $3,500. He didn't need another one, he said; he already had an identical one - and 20 other pinball machines - at home.

The bidding moved on to another pinball machine. And then to several "cabaret" - miniature - arcade terminals. As one of the most widely produced series of video games in history, none of the Pac-Man games drew more than a handful of bidders.

Danny Santiago scored a cabaret Ms. Pac-Man game, and two other games, for a total of about $1,500. Ms. Pac-Man was for his daughter, Danielle, who is 8. Jacob, 10, chose Galaga, a classic battle between spaceships. Centipede, in which a giant insect weaves its way down to attack the player at the bottom of the screen, was for the two of them and for himself, Santiago said.

Santiago said the three had seen the auction advertised Saturday morning in a newspaper. The timing was perfect, he said, because he and his wife had just started to outfit the game room of their Temecula home about two years after they moved in.

"We fed the kids and ran out the door," Santiago said.

Contact staff writer Chris Bagley at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2615, or cbagley@californian.com.