LEYDEN — A 5-ton military dump truck fetched $13,450 for the town last week in an online auction.
The 1990 AM General 6×6 garnered 73 bids before the auction closed on Friday, Dec. 19, and will soon belong to a Tennessee man. Leyden Town Coordinator Michele Giarusso said she was pleasantly surprised with the final amount.
“We started at $3,000,” she said Monday, reflecting back on when bidding began on Nov. 20. “Used vehicles are very … hot, I guess, at this point.”
She said the buyer will mail a certified bank check, which will be deposited into the town’s General Fund as free cash, and he will send a flatbed trailer to retrieve the dump truck.
The online auction listing notes that the dump truck has served the town well “for the past 10 years.”
“It’s nice to get rid of surplus equipment that way,” Giarusso said. “Every little bit helps the town.”
Although Giarusso is unsure how Leyden acquired the piece of equipment, she said it is registered to the local Police Department but was used infrequently by the Highway Department when employees needed another heavy truck to haul gravel or other material.
Over the years, Leyden has been known to participate in the Law Enforcement Support Office (LESO) Program, which transfers excess military equipment to non-military law enforcement agencies.
The dump truck was sold via municibid.com, an online auction site for government surplus, which Leyden has used previously. More than 7,000 governments and schools across the United States use municibid.com to auction off fire trucks, buses, ambulances, heavy machinery, agricultural equipment and other surplus goods to the public. Hawley used the site in 2024 to sell a 1990 BMY-Harsco M9229A2 6×6 military dump truck.