BP-2026.004.1
Dybbuk Box
- Claim
- 4 of 5
Animals and crops destroyed, or lasting harm to the body, livelihood or estate. - Evidence
- 1 of 5
Statements by those involved, and nothing further. - Provenance
- 1 of 3
Described and identifiable, but its history is unrecorded.
These three figures are kept separate and are never combined into a single score. How grave the claim is, what it rests on, and whether the object can be traced are different questions. How the register reads them.
Asserted
Accounts attributed to a source. The register does not adopt them.
That it brought illness into the household. The cabinet is said to contain a dybbuk — a displaced spirit of Jewish folklore — sealed inside it by a Holocaust survivor. Owners and people who handled it report nightmares, unexplained smells, unexplained illness, and misfortune passing to anyone who touches it.
- C6
unease
- C11
sleep disturbance
- C21
illness
- P10
odour
- T2
passes by contact
- E5
a non-human entity attributed to it
index v0.8: Non-human entity attributed
- E7
bound or trapped in the object
- E14
hostile temperament
- H12
belonged to a named victim
reported by: four identifiable people since 2003
Recorded
Established by the register, or received with the object.
File
- Register number
- BP-2026.004.1
- Entry type
- Object entry
- Opened
- 2026-09-16
- Coded against
- Claim Index v0.8
Object
- Type
- wine cabinet
- Materials
- wood, glass, metal
- Date
- probably 1950s
- Origin
- United States
- Whereabouts
- held privately
Custody
No custody record has been entered.
On what grounds
Published retellings and an online sale listing. Reported by four identifiable people since 2003. Evidence is capped at 1: the story has been admitted as invented.
Counter-indications
What weighs against the claim. These are never subtracted from a figure; the lowest applicable ceiling is applied instead.
- CI11
the story has been admitted as invented
- CI13
the object's date is incompatible with the claimed event
- CI9
the claim first appears in a sale listing
- CI23
the reporter had a commercial interest in it
The seller stated publicly in 2021 that he devised the term, the idea and the narrative himself as a piece of writing to accompany an online listing, that the carving on the back is his own work, and that the stone inside was his own addition. Two acquaintances confirmed having watched him construct the story. A separate examination concluded that the cabinet is a 1950s New York minibar rather than a Spanish antique.
Register findings
- MT7
price record on file
- MT8
replicas or copies marketed
- MT26
exhibited publicly
- MT28
has appeared in film and broadcast
Market
Sold online in 2003. Replicas and imitations are now marketed as a category.