A Pennsylvania Goodwill received a 'really unique' 1-inch gold LEGO piece—it just sold for $18,000

A Pennsylvania Goodwill received a ‘really unique’ 1-inch gold LEGO piece—it just sold for $18,000

Thrift stores are a great place to find hidden gems. But sometimes, you might find real treasure.

A Pennsylvania Goodwill recently received an extremely rare LEGO piece that it was able to sell for a small fortune.

The Dubois, Pa. store received a donation of a box of jewelry 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 this week. “It came in a box full of random jewelry from the State College store. So it had already been processed through donations there.”

The gold LEGO piece was donated to Goodwill along with a box of jewelry.

Though Bionicles were traditionally made of plastic like all other LEGOs, 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 1-inch-tall 14-karat gold LEGO piece saw bidding start at $3,300. After 48 bids, the mask sold for $18,101.

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 $850.

Even the LEGO Titanic, which measures four-and-a-half feet long is one of LEGO’s largest sets ever, costs a comparatively affordable $680.

Want to land your dream job in 2024? Take CNBC’s new online course How to Ace Your Job Interview to learn what hiring managers are really looking for, body language techniques, what to say and not to say, and the best way to talk about pay.