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Per a Court Order in the criminal case, United States v. Theodore J. Kaczynski, aka "Unabomber," the government was ordered to conduct an auction of Kaczynski's seized property. Items were sold to the general public in an effort to pay off the $15 million restitution order to Kaczynski's victims and their families. The U.S. Marshals Service, nor GSA, received any revenue from these sales. On June 2, 2011, The National Museum of Crime & Punishment purchased three lots from the auction; the items on display in the museum are: a hand bowed wooden saw, a Hanson 1509 scale, passport photos, and several other tools.
Construction of Kaczynski's explosives was all done by hand, without the assistance of power tools. When possible, he used wood and metal scraps obtained from the trash. Many of the internal parts and containers for his explosive devises were constructed from wood, and considerable effort was expended by the Unabomber Task Force to determine if the types of wood used could point toward his location or if there was a behavioral motivation behind his choice of wood.*
Kaczynski even went so far as to create actual tools himself, with the general exception of screws and nails. He cast certain metal parts (including aluminum) by melting metal scraps on the wood burning stove of his cabin. Any store-bought purchases were made far away from his cabin, often while in disguise; he detailed these elaborate efforts in his writings. These items supported his choice to live an isolated life in his cabin, with no electricity or running water.
The Unabomber exhibit is within the CSI/Forensic section of the museum and focuses on linguistic analysis, which is what ultimately led to Kaczynski's capture.
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*information provided by the government auction
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