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LOST for sale

Mike Gordon
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DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARADVERTISER.COM
Addison Arquette, holding a model of the Oceanic plane that went down in "Lost," is organizing the show's props, some of which are stored in a warehouse in Kalihi.
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Addison Arquette holds John Locke's wheelchair. Behind him are various vehicles seen in "Lost."
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A Dharma Initiative can of yellow corn is among the "Lost" auction items.
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Hurley's lottery check.

Souvenirs from the mysterious and imaginative world of ABC’s "Lost" — baby-blue VW Dharma vans, Locke’s coffin, wreckage of the Oceanic Flight 815, weathered costumes, battered luggage and a whole lot more — will be offered to the public in an auction next weekend that is bound to please fans.

The collection, currently stored in a Kalihi warehouse and a California hangar, is expected to fetch more than $1 million, according Joseph Maddalena, president of Profiles in History, which is handling the auction.

Bidders from 32 countries have registered to participate.

HOW TO BID

A live broadcast of a "Lost" prop auction from Santa Monica, Calif., will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday and next Sunday at the Sheraton Waikiki. To register as a bidder, visit www.profilesinhistory.com.

 

Although it will take place in Santa Monica, the auction will be broadcast in a live feed to a room at the Sheraton Waikiki where Hawaii fans can make their bids, Maddalena said. The event is free to attend.

"There are ‘Lost’ fans all over the world," he said. "Everyone has a favorite memento. You can get your favorite character’s costume, Hurley’s winning Lotto ticket, Charlie’s Drive Shaft ring. There are so many great things."

The series, which was filmed in Hawaii, ended May 23 with a finale that drew an estimated 15.4 million viewers. Its final season is in the running for a dozen Emmys, including outstanding drama series and four acting awards.

There’s a mountain of memorabilia for sale, and the Kalihi warehouse is jammed with items of every size and from every season.

There are nearly 200 boxes, including 66 cardboard containers of costumes. The man hired to oversee the collection for the auction house, Addison Arquette, has found the whole collection a bit overwhelming.

Arquette, a 62-year-old retired phone company employee, had a recurring role on the sixth and final season of "Lost" as a temple guard, and some of the props he held will be on the auction block.

"It’s pretty surreal," he said, standing beside the orange Z28 Chevy Camaro driven by Hurley during a wild chase scene. "A lot of the small stuff … I have to inventory it and just touching it, I kind of flash back myself. This is my favorite show ever, and to be in here is a dream."

The props are a tribute to camera angles and special effects. One of them, a sandal-clad foot and ankle created to look like the ruins of a giant stone statue, was as large as a four-story building on "Lost." In reality it’s only 6 feet tall and sculpted from foam that has been repaired several times.

The section of submarine that transported people to and from the mysterious island is really just a shell fashioned out of thin sheet metal and wood painted gray. There’s a periscope, too — a pole painted black.

But all of this is bona fide television history.

Jean Higgins, who served as the show’s executive producer, said she was floored when she saw the catalog for the auction.

"The first thing that struck me was the volume of work," she said. "The amount of work we accomplished in six years was staggering, and there it was all laid out in this book."

Putting the collection up for sale is the best thing for it, she said.

"I think it’s a wonderful thing," Higgins said. "I think it’s a chance to make fans a part of what they so wonderfully supported for all those years. And what would happen to it otherwise? It would just sit in a warehouse and get dusty."

 

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