TREASURE HUNT: Oliver Freidrichs of Woodside looks at kachina dolls and Dickens novels at the Treasure Market’s silent auction. Rod Searcey

When the Cantor Arts Center offers the chance to buy art, people line up outside the museum hours before it opens. When the time comes, they run to the tents set up on the museum grounds.

The biennial Treasure Market fine arts and antiques sale is serious business. The three-day April fund-raiser is open to the public and features art priced below appraisal value. Among the items sold this year: a 28-volume set of Dickens, a six-panel Japanese screen and more than 50 colorful Hopi kachina dolls.

Pieces are donated by alumni, art and antique dealers and collectors. All proceeds go toward the acquisition fund for Cantor’s American Art collection. Even in the era of eBay, the fund-raiser is thriving. Nearly 2,000 shoppers helped generate more than $200,000—among the largest totals in Treasure Market’s 48-year history. For many, it was worth the frenzied hunt. A San Francisco buyer bid at silent auction on a René Auberge painting; he bought it for $6,000. Terrilyn Hanko spent time scouring the silverware table beneath Rodin’s Thinker for the perfect antique silver tea service tray. “I’ve been looking for this for a long time.”