History Main / PricelessPaperWeight

* ''Videogame/PokemonLegendsArceus'': After asking you to collect three logs to craft her a cutting board, Cogita gives you her old one, which is actually the Pixie Plate, one of the [[AncientArtifact ancient artifacts associated with the OlympusMons [[TheMaker Arceus]]. She [[AmbiguousSituation claims]] to have never realized what it was, but notes that in hindsight everything she cut on it tasted better.

* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' has the Salvation Sphere. It is one of the pieces of the Legacy, a group of AncientArtifacts [[GottaCatchEmAll that the Weatherlight crew must collect]] so they can save Dominaria from the BigBad, Yawgmoth. Most players probably won't recognize it by its original name though, since it's more popularly known as, uhh... [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=4629 Squee's Toy]].

* ''Videogame/PokemonLegendsArceus'': After asking you to collect three logs to craft her a cutting board, Cogita gives you her old one, which is actually the Pixie Plate, one of the AncientArtifacts associated with the OlympusMons [[TheMaker Arceus]]. She [[AmbiguousSituation claims]] to have never realized what it was, but notes that in hindsight everything she cut on it tasted better.

* In ''Film/MysteryScienceTheater3000TheMovie,'' Tom Servo turns out to have an interocitor (a piece of advanced alien technology) in his room. He's been using it to make hot chocolate.

* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' has the Salvation Sphere. It is one of the pieces of the Legacy, a group of ancient artifacts [[GottaCatchEmAll that the Weatherlight crew must collect]] so they can save Dominaria from the BigBad, Yawgmoth. Most players probably won't recognize it by its original name though, since it's more popularly known as, uhh... [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=4629 Squee's Toy]].

* ''Videogame/PokemonLegendsArceus'': After asking you to collect three logs to craft her a cutting board, Cogita gives you her old one, which is actually the Pixie Plate, one of the ancient artifacts associated with the OlympusMons [[TheMaker Arceus]]. She [[AmbiguousSituation claims]] to have never realized what it was, but notes that in hindsight everything she cut on it tasted better.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode "Mecha-Streisand", Cartman and Kyle discover an ancient artifact capable of giving its user ultimate power. To them, however, it's a cool glowing triangle and they fight over the right to either let it sit on Kyle's dresser or in Cartman's shoe.

* 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.'' It doesn't return for ''VideoGame/MassEffect3''; the Alliance presumably took issue with Shepard's less-than-appropriate usage of archeological finds and confiscated it.

* ''Fanfic/TheFlashSentryChronicles'': It is revealed that the final piece of Princess Amore's statue, which when are all gathered back together [[NotQuiteDead will restore her to life]], was found by a group of Earth Golems that live North of the Crystal Empire, and use it as a back-scratcher to scratch the moss off their backs. [[spoiler:Thankfully though, they agree to trade it in exchange for Ruby Scarlett creating a much better and fancier back-scratcher out of crystal for them.]]

* Note that this is occasionally been invoked when priceless historical items have actually been encased in literal acrylic paperweights and given off as gifts to important figures or friends of the historical figures associated with them. Examples include the coconut that JFK's crew used a distress message, many pieces of historic space craft, and a few bullets used in (mostly) failed assassinations. It seems tasteless to sell something people call priceless, so might as well do something interesting with it.

-->-- ''Machinima/RedVsBlue''

* ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'':

* UsefulNotes/TheStanleyCup was once accidentally forgotten by the then-champion Montreal Wanderers at a photographer's studio, and when they went to retrieve it they found the photographer's mother had been using it as a vase to hold germaniums.

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', [[MilesGloriosus Trixie]] accidentally teleports the Friendship Table -- one of the most powerful magical items in Equestria -- to an unknown location. When she and Starlight find it, [[spoiler:it's being used as a massage table at the Ponyville Spa.]]

* ''Videogame/PokemonLegendsArceus'': After asking you to collect three logs to craft her a cutting board, Cogita gives you her old one, which is actually the Pixie Plate, one of the ancient artifacts associated with the OlympusMons [[TheMaker Arceus]]. She never realized what it was, but notes that in hindsight everything she cut on it tasted better.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Home}}'', Captain Smek silences other Boov by hitting them on the head with the rock on the end of his "shusher wand". We later discover that the "rock" [[spoiler:contains the entire next generation of Gorg, which is the true reason the Gorg has been chasing the Boov]].

** Speaking of Skyrim, decoration is usually the destiny of many an artifact. The core of a Dwemer Centurion? A daedric Sigil Stone? [[http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=7375 The Space Core]] from ''VideoGame/Portal2''? All awesome mantelpiece mainstays for the player's house!
*** For the stated examples, they're items with either no other usage than VendorTrash, or are key items with usage so immediate that they quick overstay their welcome on the player's carry capacity, or were downloaded for WeirdCrossover value. Though it certainly doesn't help that unlike many other artifacts, they're not static objects. They're constantly animated, emit light, and in the Space Core's case, even speaks randomly like a bonafide NPC. It certainly feels like the devs made them with such a detail in order to be gorgeous decorations from the get-go.

* ''Videogame/PokemonLegendsArceus'': After asking you to collect three logs to craft her a cutting board, Cogita gives you her old one, which is actually the Pixie Plate, one of the ancient artifacts associated with the OlmypusMons [[TheMaker Arceus]]. She never realized what it was, but notes that in hindsight everything she cut on it tasted better.

* ''Videogame/PokemonLegendsArceus'': After asking you to collect three logs to craft her a cutting board, Cogita gives you her old one, which is actually the Pixie Plate. She never realized what it was, but notes that in hindsight everything she cut on it tasted better.

* ''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 a hold of it, the [[BigGood Old Man]] uses it as the other half of a bookends.

Compare with GrailInTheGarbage, HiddenInPlainSight, MundaneUtility, UsefulBook, and WorthlessYellowRocks.

* ''Series/Loki2021'' has a literal example, with confiscated [[ArtifactOfDoom Infinity Stones]] being so common that some [[TimePolice Time Variance Authority]] bureaucrats use them as paperweights. [[TheWorfEffect This helps establish that the TVA is ridiculously above anything else that has presently appeared in the]] Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse.