Rare LEGO piece made of 14-karat gold shows up at Pennsylvania Goodwill store, now up for auction
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- At a Goodwill store near State College, a rare LEGO piece was donated, mixed into a random box of donated jewelry. And that little LEGO is worth some big bucks.
Chad Smith, the vice president of e-commerce and technology for Goodwill in North Central Pennsylvania says he is almost never surprised by what gets donated to his organization. But sometimes, he says, something gets brought in that grabs everyone's attention.
Such is the case with the rare, 14-karate Bionicle Golden Kanohi Hau LEGO Mask that dates back to the early 2000s.
"Originally this was done in 2001," said Smith. "It was a giveaway, and there were 25, I believe, that were given away and five remained for people who actually worked at LEGO. So 23 years later, one of these resurfaces and it's really unique."
Susan Earls was on the second season of "LEGO Masters" and her and her son Austin have been building and collecting LEGO for years, including these types of Bionicles. They say that this is an interesting piece and that Bionicles as a whole are a somewhat controversial type of LEGO.
"It is more of an action figure," Austin explained. "It's very action figure-oriented, pretty simple to build, not brick-based and immensely posable."
"And it got a lot of mixed reactions," added Susan. "And there are still people that don't like Bionicles, just die-hard LEGO fans that don't like it at all. But because he grew up loving it, I loved it too and I got to be able to buy it and put it together with him."
Though the Earls don't anticipate putting in a bid on this 14-karat helmet, they are sure someone will give it a loving home and pay a lot for it.
"I think you are going to have some die-hards that were of that age as children, that were really into that line of Bionicle," Susan said. "And now that they are adults and have plenty of money, then they are going to definitely want to finish a collection of something that they never could have achieved when they were kids."
The online auction for this piece ends Wednesday night and at last look. the bidding was over $6,000 for this LEGO piece. All proceeds go back to Goodwill to help with their mission to help others. If you'd like to place a bid or for more information, click here.