History Main / PricelessPaperweight

* ''Literature/InfiniteBeach'' takes place in a world of AbsentAliens. It turns out that a model spacecraft that a businessman is keeping in his office is an actual alien spacecraft used by a race of [[{{Lilliputians}} small aliens.]]

* In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDm5Tb1JL1E this]] late-1990s Fed Ex commercial, a competitor package company erroneously sends the UsefulNotes/StanleyCup to rural Bolivia, where it ends up as a basket for produce in a village market.

** Loki sourly speculate in the sequel that Doctor Strange -- time-travelling pack-rat, immortal manipulator, [[TheGadfly and gadfly extraordinaire]] -- probably not only owns the original Excalibur (there were two), but is probably using it as a fireplace poker.
** In the same story, Steve Rogers occasionally uses Mjölnir as a doorstop. No-one has the heart to tell [[HumbleHero him]] that [[OnlyTheChosenMayWield he's about the only person other than Thor who can pick it up at all]].

* ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' not only has artifact furniture, but lets you mount artifact weapons on furniture to make ''amazing'' dinner rooms.

* Basically made into a game mechanic in ''VideoGame/EvilGenius''. Stealing priceless treasures is an integral part of the game, because they generate an area-of-effect that regenerates your minions' loyalty statistic. This requires you to put them in the spots in your base where minions tend to congregate, which leads to you using the Ark of the Covenant and Excalibur as decorations in your employee break room and cafeteria. Averted by the second game, however, where stolen treasures each have unique effects.

* The only thing you can do with Uber Loot in ''VideoGame/EvilGenius''. Putting {{Excalibur}} in your control room, decorating your infirmary with a Million Dollar Bill, or placing a mummy's sarcophagus in your armory. All these items have an aura restoring minions stats (all pieces of loot restore loyalty).

** In a Creator/DonRosa story, "The Treasury of Croesus", Scrooge [=McDuck=] seeks to restore one of the lost Wonders of the Ancient World, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, in order to decipher the location of the treasure-trove of King Croesus (who bankrolled the construction of the temple) from writing scattered across the columns. Most of the pieces of the columns were scattered across the world when invading Goths tore down the temple and carted off the pieces as trophies. So, Scrooge travels all across the world, seeking out the lost pieces in a Montage - finding several of them being used in mundane ways.

* ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'' has Loki sourly speculate in the sequel that Doctor Strange - time travelling pack-rat, immortal manipulator, [[TheGadfly and gadfly extraordinaire]] - probably not only owns the original Excalibur (there were two), but is probably using it as a fireplace poker.
** In the same story, Steve Rogers occasionally uses Mjolnir as a doorstop. No one has the heart to tell [[HumbleHero him]] that [[OnlyTheChosenMayWield he's about the only person other than Thor who can pick it up at all]].

* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'' Warehouse 23 mentioned that one of the powers ascribed to TheArkOfTheCovenant was that it would shoot lightning to kill the vermin on the Israelites' path, thus making it the Bug Zapper Of The Gods, and dared the GM to imagine a Secret Master decadent enough to use it only as such.

* In ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'', Grif gets hold of a [[GrenadeLauncher Brute Shot]], an incredibly powerful piece of alien weaponry that belonged to [[TheBrute the Meta]] prior to the end of Season 8. He uses it as a wall decoration and occasional snack platter.
** In season 13, we learn that the Chairman of the Oversight Committee has decorated his personal office with "souvenirs" from Project Freelancer; Among these items is the aforementioned Brute Shot (Confiscated from Grif after Season 10) and the Monitor, an alien artifact that once housed Epsilon.

* Mummies were once a lot more common in Egypt, since mummification had previously been a very popular form of burial. Before the world fully appreciated the scientific and historical significance of mummies, many of them were used to make medicine (not something they're good for). There are also stories of them being used as fuel for locomotives, but the jury's still out on the truth of that. They were also ground up and used as pigment, appropriately called "Mummy Brown."

* How (one of the) oldest examples of Chinese writing was found: a man bought some bones from a Chinese medicine peddler for an illness and noticed some odd markings on them. He then realized he almost ate priceless archaeological artifacts.
** Quite a few fossils of great scientific value have been found in Chinese folk-medicine shops as well, and there's no guessing how many more have been ground up for home remedies before being discovered.

* ''Series/{{Millennium}}'' did this with a chunk of the cross which once held Christ. A rival faction called [[ThoseWackyNazis Odessa]] had the priceless artifact in a beautiful glass case on a velvet cushion, with a Nazi flag behind it. When the Millennium Group proper gets ahold of it, the [[BigGood Old Man]] uses it as the other half of a bookends.

Priceless Paperweight, therefore, is when said important and/or priceless artifacts or other objects are being used for ridiculously mundane purposes, like paperweights, footstools, or a pretty decor for their bookshelf. Oftentimes this is PlayedForLaughs, usually by showing TheHero's or some other person seeing the usage's shocked reaction to such a stupid way of using something so valuable.

* In ''Film/TheDarkKnight'', in order to illustrate that [[Main/ForTheEvulz "Some men just want to watch the world burn"]], Alfred Pennyworth tells the story of a Burmese bandit who stole precious stones and simply tossed them away afterwards. The butler found it out when he saw a clear example of this trope: a child mindlessly playing with a ruby the size of a tangerine.

* In ''Webcomic/ExterminatusNow'', Eastwood swiped an object from Inquisition storage and uses it as a bookend. It turns out to be an ancient SoulJar sought after by Morth and his patron god. And after all's done and solved he ''still'' wants his [[JustForPun godsforsaken]] bookend, because the sickly-green light of all the ancient souls trapped within is simply ''perfect'' for his shelves' ambiance.

* At the conclusion of the "Firewalker" mission in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', Shepard and his/her crew come across an artifact: a metallic sphere implied to be a data storage device of some sort. After confirming the artifact is inert and harmless, Shepard uses it as an ornament for his/her coffee table on the ''Normandy.''

* PlayedForLaughs in TheSimpsons. Someone at the Nuclear Power Plant was using a rod of plutonium (priced at $4000 an ounce) as a paperweight. It was just one of the over 300 safety violations found at the plant.

So there's this MacGuffin right--perhaps one that TheHero and company [[GottaCatchEmAll must find]] in order to stop the TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt, or maybe something that explains all they need to know to solve some problem at hand. Somebody goes searching for it, looking under every rock, solving every puzzle, and maybe even [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique going all apeshit on someone who might know where the MacGuffin is]]. But eventually they find the MacGuffin, and discover that this priceless, important, amazing artifact/object/spear/war-souvenir/whatever is being used...as a paperweight.

* This is how the only surviving example of the Fat-Man atomic bomb (the same type used on Nagasaki) was found. For years a second Fat Man casing just sat in the basement of various storage facilities under the false assumption it was a pumpkin bomb, a type of conventional bomb designed to train pilots to use the Fat Man a-bombs. It wasn't until the Nimitz museum acquired the piece that anyone noticed it was the real deal. It is one of only a dozen of authentic (obviously demilitarized) nuclear weapons in the world on display.

* ''Series/{{Millennium}}'' did this with a chunk of the cross which once held Christ. A rival faction called [[ThoseWackyNazis Odessa]] had the priceless artifact in a beautiful glass case on a velvet cushion, with a Nazi flag behind it. When the Millennium Group proper gets ahold of it, the [[BigGood Old Man]] uses it as the other half of a bookends. It's practically a CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming.