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If you’ve purchased a LEGO set, you probably know it can be a somewhat pricy hobby. However, that’s especially true if you’re looking to add some rarer acquisitions to your collection, including a single piece that recently fetched over $18,000.
You never know what you’re going to find when you walk into a thrift store, and I think most people who find themselves combing through secondhand goods do so hoping they’re going to stumble across a hidden goldmine courtesy of an item that managed to fly under the radar.
According to Smithsonian Magazine, that was the case with a LEGO piece that ended up in a bag of jewelry that was donated to a Goodwill near State College, Pennsylvania earlier this year. Employees decided to list the gold mask online while setting the price at $14.95 but quickly discovered they were sitting on something special after being contacted by collectors who offered them significantly more.
After doing some research, the Goodwill staffers discovered the piece in question was a rare Kanohi Hau mask from the LEGO Bionicle line that was produced for a contest in 2001. Made from 14-karat gold, a grand total of 30 pieces were made, five of which were reserved for LEGO employees with the other 25 being given away to members of the general public.
Goodwill subsequently decided to auction off the mask, which originally fetched a winning bid of $33,000. However, it relisted the piece after the prospective buyer failed to produce the funds, which led to a bidding war that came to an end after it fetched a grand total of $18,101.
That’s not the only gold item that’s recently fetched a fortune after ending up in a donation bin; last year, a charity in Oregon raised more than $50,000 after finding itself in possession of a rare pair of Air Jordans that were originally produced for Spike Lee.