A rare 14-karat gold piece from Lego's Bionicle line was found at a Goodwill store in central Pennsylvania and auctioned off for more than $18,000.

The golden Kanohi Hau mask was discovered in a bag of jewelry that arrived at the Goodwill Store in Du Bois more than 10 days ago, Chad Smith, the store's vice president of e-commerce and technology, told USA TODAY on Wednesday.

"No one probably thought anything of it," Smith said, adding that the mask came from the State College area.

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What is the Lego golden Kanohi Hau Mask?

Goodwill spokesperson Jessica Illuzzi told USA TODAY that the Goodwill staff had no idea how valuable the item was until it was posted online on their e-commerce platform, ShopGoodwill, and people reached out to them with private offers.

"That's when we did a little research and we found out that it was one of 30 golden masks that Lego released in 2001," Illuzi said, adding that 25 of those were given to Lego employees while the remaining five were given away in a contest by Lego.

According to the Goodwill auction listing, the mask is approximately 1 inch tall and weighs about 9 ounces.

"Truly a unique, rare, collectible piece," adds the description.

Mask received 48 bids

The item got 48 bids and was sold for $18,101 last Wednesday to a buyer who wished to remain anonymous.

"It's the highest piece I've ever sold," said Smith, who has been with the company for almost 25 years.

Even though ShopGoodwill has auctions almost every day, he was up all night watching the bid for the mask and ensuring they were legitimate since the item previously went up for bid up at $33,000, but no one ended up paying, he said.

Both Smith and Illuzi said that the money from the auction will go toward supporting Goodwill's mission of helping people with life challenges and providing training opportunities.

"All of the money that we get from selling the item will to go back into our mission, so it'll help provide jobs and training opportunities, and everything else that our wonderful plant specialists do to build people's competence and given the skills that they need to succeed," Illuzi said.

Saman Shafiq is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at sshafiq@gannett.com and follow her on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter @saman_shafiq7.

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