Shoppers began lining up outside the Oakland warehouse at 6 a.m. on Sunday — four hours before the building’s overhead door opened. For the next month, the warehouse will serve as a massive, pop-up department store, packed with a year’s worth of accumulated loot: a Polish floor loom, several grandfather clocks, and more than a few porcelain duck figurines, among other more practical finds.

Oakland’s annual White Elephant Sale, which bills itself as the oldest and largest rummage sale in Northern California, was established about 60 years ago and is run by the Oakland Museum Women’s Board as a fundraiser for the Oakland Museum of California, accounting for 10% of the museum’s annual budget. For the past year, a crew of 800 volunteers have piled donations into the warehouse, which is about the size of two football fields.

Now the sale has begun, and (with a ticket) the doors are open to the public.

The warehouse was bustling on Sunday afternoon, but the mood wasn’t frantic. Despite the determined looks on their faces, shoppers roamed the concrete floors at an easy gait, clutching framed paintings and antique lamps in their arms. So long as you kept your elbows tucked in, it was easy to traverse the walkways. Volunteers in white button-ups and lab coats packaged paintings, helmed cashier stations scattered throughout the floor and chatted up customers. Over the din of commerce, a talkative emcee announced lost receipts and improperly parked cars via a PA system.

So what’s for sale? The question is nearly impossible to answer precisely, since the warehouse holds just about every consumer product imaginable.

There’s the sports department, where skis lean against shelves of Oakland A’s bobbleheads. The book area has more floor space than most boutique bookshops and is organized as neatly as a Barnes & Noble. There’s the music department, where I counted at least four accordions for sale and approximately seven young millennials in nice blue jeans digging through record crates. The furniture section is stacked with piles of area rugs and rows of dressers and mirrors. Then there’s sewing, garden, jewelry, electronics, menswear, hardware, linen, art and toys. And finally, there’s bric-a-brac, where old cookie tins, porcelain cat figurines and Christmas decorations adorn display tables. 

And everything is cheap. Not dirt cheap, but a notch or two below the eBay market rate. An off-brand walkman for $5, T-shirts sold at $10 a bundle and a framed poster-sized photo of the Painted Ladies sold for less than the price of a Mission burrito. A sewing table with a built-in machine went for $75, and a leather love seat cost $150. On the higher end, a 6-foot-tall oak dresser and vanity was $400, and a Giant brand road bike sold for $500.

Lynne Berg is a longtime White Elephant volunteer who serves as this year’s sales chair. She told SFGATE that of all the sale’s departments, jewelry, clothing and bric-a-brac were “outrageously popular.”

The White Elephant Sale may only last a month, but it’s a whole year in the making. The operation kicks off in March, when the sale’s van drivers start scooping up donated belongings around the Bay Area. Most of the donations come from the relatives of the recently deceased, who often give away everything from pearl necklaces to unsorted junk drawers. By the end of April, enough stuff — there’s no other word to describe it all — has accumulated in the warehouse that the pile sprawls across the floor and stacks up high. 

Then the hard work begins. From May through January, volunteers come to the warehouse a few days every week and chip away at the piles. They test electronics, sort button-down shirts by size, bundle T-shirts for bulk sale, dust off wooden dressers, separate sports gear from furniture and bric-a-brac, and slap price tags on everything. 

Even though tickets to Sunday’s preview sale cost $40 apiece, they sold out quickly. The line on Sunday extended multiple blocks, all the way to the Fruitvale BART station. Tickets are $5 each for the public shopping days, which begin on Wednesday and run through February on select days. Some of those dates are already sold out, although there will be walk-in tickets as space allows.

Most of the people I spoke to were regulars, and they were eager to offer a few tips to a first-timer. (Don’t skip the book section, and hit the rugs early.) Word about rare items got around fast, too. I heard a rumor from one shopper about Herman Miller lounge chairs that sold instantly. (Berg later confirmed that the chairs were put up for sale.)

Given the warehouse’s sprawl, expect to spend at least a few hours browsing. On some days of volunteering, Berg has walked 5 miles on the warehouse floor. The scope of the operation tuckers out some shoppers, too. I ran into one woman who sat down on a modestly priced yellow love seat for a breather, leaning a recently purchased painting against a nearby table. There was less than an hour before the preview sale closed, she explained, exasperated. And she still hadn’t had a chance to look at the vinyl.

Once February’s public shopping days have concluded, there will be a one-weekend blowout sale in March before the organizers donate the leftover goods. For a brief spell, the warehouse will sit empty. 

Then the van drivers will rev their engines, plug in their routes and start hauling in new goods for next year’s sale.