The Associated Press

Things people left on planes and at airports — more than 20,000 of them, including a wedding dress and a pair of rudimentary stilts — were auctioned Tuesday in a big clear out of Madrid airport's lost and found department.

The sale, organized by national flagship carrier Iberia, involved unclaimed items found on any plane operated by any carrier in Spain or at any Spanish airport over the past six months, Iberia said.

The objects were divided up into nine lots – clothes in one, jewelry in another and so on – that ended up going for prices ranging from 641 euros ($933) for the cheapest to 18,340 euros ($24,722) for the most expensive.

The tokens of travellers' forgetfulness included 6,330 books, 664 toys, 1,570 audio or video gadgets, 38 cartons of cigarettes, several surf boards, a bass guitar, a wedding dress and a pair of crudely made stilts with sneakers at the bottom, said an Iberia official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

There was no frantic bidding; rather, auctioneers simply opened sealed offers that potential buyers had submitted over a one-week period that ended Monday. Iberia said most are merchants who run secondhand stores.

The auctions have been held twice a year since 1942, when the government started them. Iberia was Spain's only airline at the time, so it was put in change and has continued to stage the sales out of tradition.

Proceeds — minus the cost of hiring the auctioneers and Iberia's costs in storing mountains of lost possessions — go to Spain’s Development Ministry.