A 14-karat gold Lego piece sold for $24,501 Goodwill’s online auction house on Wednesday. The Lego piece is the gold Kanohi-Hau mask from Lego’s Bionicle line, made in the 2000s.
Of course, this isn’t your average Lego piece – the company produced a number of plastic versions of the various Bionicle masks, but only a few dozen of the gold pieces. that were supposedly given away during special Lego promotions. Lego has hosted several competitions over the years with golden Bionicle masks as prizes: One competition asked children to create websites, and another was a competition with Cartoon Network. It’s not clear how many solid gold masks were given away, but Goodwill Industries of North Central Pennsylvania is vice president of e-commerce and technology appreciated to CBS that the number was around 25.
Unlike typical Lego sets, the Bionicle line consisted more of action figures than anything else. Nevertheless, they could be assembled into robot figures with different masks. The Bionicle line was discontinued in 2005, brought back in 2015, discontinued again in 2016, and partially brought back in 2023, with a small Bionicle set only available for a limited time. The gold mask being auctioned at Goodwill is of the character Tahu. Lego gave away the masks in jewelry boxes with the Lego logo.
“We didn’t know what we had when we found it,” said Jessica Illuzzi, spokeswoman for Goodwill Industries of North Central Pennsylvania said CBS affiliate WTAJ. “It came from the State College store in a box full of random trinkets. So it had already been done there through donations.”
This is actually the second time this particular gold mask has been auctioned off. Earlier this month, Goodwill sold it for $33,000, but the winner never paid. The gold alone is worth almost $1,000. The auction has been running since February 16th; With five hours to go, the price rose to $16,000 before jumping to the final $24,501. It is possible one of the most expensive Lego pieces ever soldalthough it didn’t reach $33,000 this time.
