The Marvelous Misappraisal

I mean, if America ever needed a Nazi
melting ghost box, now is the time.

I'm not like an economist, but a thing is worth only what someone is willing to pay for it. It's how movie theaters can charge five dollars for water and how Apple can get a thousand dollars out of people for an iPhone. And it's also how James Supp, a host and appraiser for Antiques Roadshow can value the Ark of the Covenant at one hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Now, I know what you're thinking. That sounds kind of lowball for a box full of ghosts that can melt Nazis.

It's not the Ark of the Covenant. That is, it isn't the biblical golden chest full of the Ten Commandments. Instead, this Ark was built for Raiders of the Lost Ark, the original and objectively best Indiana Jones movie.

Yes, objectively. Know how I know? Because Raiders contains exactly
zero CGI chase scenes with Shia LaBeouf swinging on vines. Fact.

Yeah, maybe go back and watch
that part. It's...uncomfortable. 

Ok. So the titular lost Ark. The thing they're all raiding in that classic movie that still holds up to this day-uh...mostly holds up...well, if we're being honest, Raiders is pretty problematic in its portrayal of indigenous peoples and there's evidence in the script that Indy and Marion's previous relationship was super inappropriate, but still, a classic that holds up if you take it in the context of-look, the point is, for a hundred and twenty thousand dollars, it seems like it should at least be magic, right? Oh, and again it's not the real Ark. Well, obviously.

Remember? Top men? Like the guy
at the end of the movie? Reference.

But it's not the real prop Ark either. It's an Ark and it was made for the movie, but it was a prototype to test some pyro effects. The real prop Ark is in George Lucas's private collection at Skywalker Ranch, presumably being worked on by top men. Top. Men. This ersatz Ark however belongs to an anonymous San Francisco man who says that it was built by his father who worked at Industrial Light and Magic, the company that did the film's visual effects and it spent the intervening four decades full of blankets in his apartment.

Would you describe that scene as
epically iconic, or iconically epic?

After gushing about how iconic the Raiders of the Lost Ark is and how successful the franchise is, host James Supp pumped the owner for more info. The man explained that his Ark is one of the prototypes and built out of picture frames, hot glue and some old trophies spray painted gold. Supp then valued the Ark at eighty to a hundred and twenty thousand dollars, but suggested that it could possibly go as high as two hundred and fifty thousand at auction. Yes, dollars. With a D. So I'm left with some questions.

Pictured: James Supp, seen here with a
box that, like most boxes, wasn't in a movie.

Chief among them being, "wait, really?" And, "Are you sure about that James Supp?" I mean, no one's disputing the iconic-ness of Raiders of the Lost Ark. His use of the word, sure, but not his sentiment. What I am questioning is who would pay a quarter of a million dollars for this guy's hamper? Fans sure, but this isn't even the movie's fake Ark, it's a fake Ark a prop artist built to see if the fireworks would fit the real fake Ark which again, is not this Ark. Oh, and this might not be the only prototype prop. 

I don't want to tell James Supp how to appraise things people find in their garage, but I do want to point out that this rando's gold box is, by his own admission, cobbled together from junk and stuff you can buy at Micheals. So are we even sure he didn't, you know, cobble this together from junk and stuff he found at Micheals? 

I guess what I'm saying is that if someone offers to sell you a box that they
totally swear is the Ark of the covenant, maybe ask for some provenance before
handing over two hundred and fifty grand. Or at least make sure the paint is dry.