



If you take a moment to think of some of your favorite movies and then identify a memorable prop from each, you can begin to put into perspective how many millions of treasures from movie sets get lost in the shuffle and may now be in landfills or misidentified and sitting in attics or thrift shops.



The article linked below lists pieces of movie sets, backgrounds or props that were either lost for a time and then found again, or disappeared and were never recovered. One such piece is pictured above and below.

4. THE DEATH STAR // STAR WARS (1977) StarWars While George Lucas and Lucasfilm would later have the resources to curate the extensive number of props and costumes from the Star Wars trilogy, not all of the models used in the original film were so lucky. After filming was completed, the single Death Star created for screen use was moved to a storage facility. Fox soon decided they were tired of paying rent, so the contents were ordered to be thrown out. A storage unit employee noticed the Death Star, plucked it from the trash, and hung on to it for the next decade before displaying it in his mother’s Missouri antique shop. The store sold it to a musician who used it as a trash can, stuffing waste through a hole where the radar dish had been. A collector later rescued it, giving the planet-destroying superweapon a life of dignity as a public display.

Read about more precious set remnants from The Goonies, King Kong, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and more at mental_floss.