Okay, no, full disclosure: it’s not the ark that was used in the film.
If you’re a memorabilia collector looking to add that one to your display room, you’re out of luck (unless you want to go full Mission: Impossible and break into the storage rooms at Skywalker Ranch).
The ark that showed up on an episode of the PBS series Antiques Roadshow, though, is a prototype.
Image Credit: YouTube
The segment was filmed at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, CA, where a man arrived and claimed his piece was an early version of the prop that his father, who worked for the company that did the light and sound effects for the film, brought home after shooting.
It was made mostly of glued-together picture frames and – fun fact – contained family blankets and not any fabled religious items.
Womp-womp.
The show’s appraiser, James Supp, guessed the prototype could sell for anywhere between $80k-$120k, but thought that, if a bidding war happened, it could net as much as $250k.
Image Credit: YouTube
Memorabilia from the show is often sought after and pays off big for the person on the selling end – in 2018, one of Harrison Ford’s fedoras sold for $425k, and a whip that was used in the first three films sold in 1999 for $35k.
Image Credit: YouTube
There is a fifth film set for release in 2021, because apparently we learned nothing from the 4th. Steven Spielberg isn’t directing, though, instead handing the reins to Ford vs. Ferrari director James Mangold.
See the film if you must, but if you’ve got any spare memorabilia holding blankets in your basement, definitely dust that off, too.
