( CNN ) -- If a bed and 14 other antiques up for sale in New York next week look familiar , it might be that you saw them in a movie . An American Renaissance gilt , carved , inlaid and ebonized bed is expected to go for $ 500,000 . Pieces of furniture owned by two very rich 19th-century Americans were destined for a trash pile before they were rescued for the silver screen . They will find new life on the auction block next week . Made by the Herter Brothers in the 1870s , the furniture sat in Warner Brothers ' Hollywood props department since 1942 , when the studio bought it at an estate auction for a fraction of the original cost . Warner Brothers , owned by CNN parent Time Warner Inc. , could get $ 2 million from the auction , and it means valuable space will be cleared out in the props department storage . One studio source said using such expensive -- although authentic -- props on movie sets does n't make business sense . Jon King , director of Bonham 's , the New York auction house that will put the furniture on sale next Thursday , said he did not have the studio 's permission to reveal in which movies the furniture might have been used . You can watch post-1942 Warner Brothers period films to find them . `` You have to go slow-motion and stop and start an awful lot , '' King said . `` I would imagine that if any of these were in movies they might steal the scene away from the actors , '' said King , an expert in 19th-century furniture . A New York Times article about the furniture , published in 1995 , said it appeared in Warner Brother 's `` Saratoga Trunk , '' a 1945 movie starring Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman . Few records were kept over the decades to track the pieces ' appearances , a studio source said . King said he saw Herter Brothers furniture from the same estate in Alfred Hitchcock 's `` Psycho , '' filmed in 1960 on Universal 's lots . Universal bought its furniture at the same 1942 estate auction that Warner Brothers attended . The studio sold its collection years ago , King said . The furniture -- in American Renaissance and American Aesthetic styles -- was made with `` very exotic and very expensive materials '' for two very rich California men -- Gov . Milton Slocum Latham and railroad magnate Mark Harper , King said . The most dramatic piece is an ornate bed commissioned for the master bedroom at Latham 's Menlo Park , California , home . It could sell for $ 500,000 , King said . `` A lot of people in the field regard that as the finest bed ever made in the 19th century in America , '' King said . `` Basically , the quality of carving and the number of things going on in there in the bed , it 's just amazing . '' Changing times and tastes made the furniture obsolete for anything but a period movie by 1942 . Movie studios were scouring the country for cheap furniture for their props departments , King said . But recent decades have see a steep rise in values for Herter Brothers craftwork , he said . King said next week 's sale is significant for collectors because `` this is the last studio collection . '' The Herter Brothers -- German immigrants who set up their furniture-making shop in New York City after the Civil War -- also made furniture for the White House , where some pieces remain .
The furniture was owned by One wealthy 1942 German . Jon King bought it at an estate auction in 19th-century for a fraction of its original cost . Auction house not allowed to reveal in which movies the furniture was used . You can watch post-1942 Warner Brothers period films to find the antiques .