Second-hand stores are a great place to find hidden gems. But sometimes, you might find real treasure. One op shop recently received an extremely rare Lego piece that it was able to sell for a small fortune.
The Goodwill store in the US state of Pennsylvania received a donation of a box of jewellery that contained something curious: a gold Bionicle mask from the popular action figure line from the early 2000s.
“We didn’t know what we had when we found it,” a representative for Goodwill in North Central Pennsylvania told local news station WTAJ in an interview last week. “It came in a box full of random jewellery from the State College store. So it had already been processed through donations there.”
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Though Bionicles were traditionally made of plastic like all other Lego pieces, the brand created the ultra-rare Kanohi Hau masks as prizes for giveaways beginning in 2001.
“There were 25 that were given away, and five remained for people who actually worked at Lego,” Chad Smith, an executive at Goodwill in North Central Pennsylvania told CBS News in an interview. “So 23 years later, one of these resurfaces and it’s really unique.”
The 2.5-centimetre-tall 14-karat gold Lego piece saw bidding start at $US3,300 ($A5034). After 48 bids, the mask sold for $US18,101 ($A27,615).
To put that number into context, one of Lego’s most expensive sets is the Star Wars Millennium Falcon, a set comprised of more than 7,500 pieces which retails for $US850 ($A1297).
Even the Lego Titanic, which measures four-and-a-half feet long is one of Lego’s largest sets ever, costs a comparatively affordable $US680 ($A1037).
