HOLLYWOOD — The throne sold for eleven hundred dollars, which the auctioneer called a theft and the underbidder — a man dressed as if he might already own a castle — seemed to take personally.

It was one of some four thousand lots moved this month as Ardmore Property & Scenic, a prop house that had rented dressing to the industry since 1921, emptied its warehouse near Santa Monica Boulevard and closed for good.

Over three days, a century of make-believe went to the highest bidder. Crystal chandeliers that had hung over a hundred ballroom scenes. A wall of rotary telephones in every color the mid-century made. Sixty matching restaurant chairs. A fiberglass shark, minor damage to one fin. A rubber turkey so often rented for holiday episodes that the staff had given it a name and, at the auction, a reserve.

The buyers were a cross-section of where props go when a rental house dies. Collectors came for the recognizable pieces — a set decorator’s eye can spot a chair that appeared in something famous, and the bidding on those ran hot. A theme restaurant opening in the Valley bought lighting and signage by the pallet. And a rival prop house, one of the handful still standing, bought in bulk, absorbing another company’s century so its own shelves would stay full.

“This is how the business consolidates. It doesn’t announce itself. It just shows up at your competitor’s closing sale with a bidder’s paddle,” said Nadine Alcott, who buys for one of the surviving houses and spent the second day acquiring, among much else, the chandeliers.

Ardmore’s owners, the third generation of the founding family, blamed no single thing. Rentals had thinned as productions left the region and as the shows that stayed increasingly built their worlds inside a computer. A house that once dressed a dozen soundstages at a time — including, an old ledger showed, work sent to the 1928 stage now up for landmark status across town — had lately gone weeks between large orders.

“You can’t keep a warehouse this size warm on nostalgia,” said Corwin Ardmore, the founder’s grandson, standing in an aisle that had, that morning, still been full.

What the closing means depends on who is counting. For collectors, a rare chance. For the surviving houses, a windfall and a warning. For the crews who furnished imaginary rooms for a living, one fewer place to work.

The rubber turkey met its reserve. It went, for four hundred dollars, to a retired prop master who had rented it out dozens of times over the years and said he could not stand to watch it go home with a stranger.