What is the single rarest and/or most expensive LEGO piece?

[Exetrius]

3 hours ago, Ravelino said:

It may be the rarest and most expensive but I can hardly believe that (aside from bionicle MOCers) it's the most desirable part in the Lego Community...also it's not a production piece but like you said a give away in a promotion...

My money's on that MF lattice for this one to have all 3 categories..it's rare, it's very desirable(especially to pirate/boat builders and Star Wars enthusiasts who didn't have the money back then for a UCS MF, both of which together make up a large portion of the Lego community) and as stated before has gone up in price ridiculously since and even the TLG price was way higher than its brown and black cousins

The lattice is less rare and less expensive than the platinum Avohkii, those are the facts.

Desirability within the "Lego Community" is difficult to determine without solid numbers (I doubt the Star Wars community is bigger than City, for example), but ask a random kid/adult (LEGO fan or not) to choose between a shiny, solid platinum mask, or an ordinary looking grey fence.. I think we'd be done very soon. 

Edit: I should read more carefully, it's not exactly a production piece, is it? ... 

Edited April 30, 2018 by Exetrius

[koalayummies]

23 hours ago, stevethesquid said:

All of these answers are wrong.

The current (third) owner bought it for $15,000. The first owner got it for free, and it's not known what the second owner bought it for, but it was certainly less because he bought it for the sole purpose of resale.

Here's a pic of the mask with the current owner:

Looks like your answer has wrongs as well . According to this video of the actual sale the guy you have pictured is the second owner and bought it for $4200 from the kid who won it in some contest and then threw it under his bed for 10 years. The guy with classes and day-glow green shirt in the video is third owner.

Still, a waste of money and doesn't count as production piece as per the original post. Disqualified.

[Ravelino]

On 30-4-2018 at 10:02 PM, Exetrius said:

The lattice is less rare and less expensive than the platinum Avohkii, those are the facts.

Desirability within the "Lego Community" is difficult to determine without solid numbers (I doubt the Star Wars community is bigger than City, for example), but ask a random kid/adult (LEGO fan or not) to choose between a shiny, solid platinum mask, or an ordinary looking grey fence.. I think we'd be done very soon. 

Edit: I should read more carefully, it's not exactly a production piece, is it? ... 

With boat builders I meant/included city builders as well and I think city builders would have good use for it as well in other aspects? And space builders, since it came with a space craft why not build one with several of them? I may be wrong but I'm just saying it's much more versatile

Edited May 4, 2018 by Ravelino
grammar

[Exetrius]

22 hours ago, Ravelino said:

With boat builders I meant/included city builders as well and I think city builders would have good use for it as well in other aspects? And space builders, since it came with a space craft why not build one with several of them? I may be wrong but I'm just saying it's much more versatile

Yeah, you've got a point. The more of the lattices you have, the more possibilities will emerge, and that doesn't hold true for the mask. 

[stevethesquid]

On 4/30/2018 at 4:08 PM, koalayummies said:

Looks like your answer has wrongs as well . According to this video of the actual sale the guy you have pictured is the second owner and bought it for $4200 from the kid who won it in some contest and then threw it under his bed for 10 years. The guy with classes and day-glow green shirt in the video is third owner.

Still, a waste of money and doesn't count as production piece as per the original post. Disqualified.

It is a production piece, depending on your definition I guess. It's an authentic lego piece made for the purpose of being owned by a customer. I think that's what the OP meant, because he clarified by saying "no prototypes". This isn't a prototype, misprint, mold test, or anything similar!

Sorry about getting the picture wrong, didn't double check. I also wasn't aware that the brick hut guy publicly stated how much he paid for it. Sucks to be the kid who sold it but from what I heard he was on his way to selling it to a jewelry store for the raw platinum when he noticed the brick hut and sold it there instead, so that's good.

 

On 5/4/2018 at 11:35 AM, Ravelino said:

With boat builders I meant/included city builders as well and I think city builders would have good use for it as well in other aspects? And space builders, since it came with a space craft why not build one with several of them? I may be wrong but I'm just saying it's much more versatile

In the original post, there were two questions asked: 1) what's the rarest, most desirable piece, and 2) if that's not the most expensive, what is?

I was answering the second question. You can go in circles all day about what's the most desirable, but the most expensive production piece isn't up to interpretation. And personally, my most desired piece would be the most expensive. Sell that bionicle mask and you can buy dozens of gray lattices.

[MAB]

27 minutes ago, stevethesquid said:

It is a production piece, depending on your definition I guess. It's an authentic lego piece made for the purpose of being owned by a customer.

 

The definition of production piece is important. For me, it would mean appearing in a retail set but even then, in the OP they mention few to no sets so they seem to go against that definition (with the no).

Of course, that leads to a whole different discussion, as there are thousands of parts that appear in one set only and cost / demand / desirability is down to what they are. Some single appearance parts can be quite cheap but highly desireable and sell quite quickly to just a few people. Whereas others can be expensive and rarely sell.

 

[minifigminute]

Probably the skier from the Arctic Rescue set (8660). Well... my SON has it now :)

 

[Exetrius]

On 10-5-2018 at 6:51 PM, stevethesquid said:

Sucks to be the kid who sold it but from what I heard he was on his way to selling it to a jewelry store for the raw platinum [...]

I experienced physical pain while reading this.  Thankfully, history took a different course... 

16 hours ago, minifigminute said:

Probably the skier from the Arctic Rescue set (8660). Well... my SON has it now :)

 

What are you talking about? I don't see anything particularly rare or expensive in that set. 

[Ravelino]

On 10-5-2018 at 6:51 PM, stevethesquid said:

I was answering the second question. You can go in circles all day about what's the most desirable, but the most expensive production piece isn't up to interpretation. And personally, my most desired piece would be the most expensive. Sell that bionicle mask and you can buy dozens of gray lattices.

Sadly it's just the single one so like with paintings it rarely changes owner (cause who'd be crazy AND rich enough to buy one) but when it does it usually earns you a nifty extra..

Like I said in my first post I never doubted it to be the most expensive one I'm just saying I'd rather have bought me a couple (hundred) thousand of cheaper bricks worth 30k together when I sell them piece by piece, knowing I can sell them off pretty quick than the one 20-30k mask I have to buy that might earn me 60k one day if I find the right sucker..

On 10-5-2018 at 7:30 PM, MAB said:

The definition of production piece is important. For me, it would mean appearing in a retail set but even then, in the OP they mention few to no sets so they seem to go against that definition (with the no).

Of course, that leads to a whole different discussion, as there are thousands of parts that appear in one set only and cost / demand / desirability is down to what they are. Some single appearance parts can be quite cheap but highly desireable and sell quite quickly to just a few people. Whereas others can be expensive and rarely sell.

 

actually exactly what this guy said lol.

But you answered the topic question spot on as well..there's only one so it's one of the rarest and it's worth a couple k so it's the most expensive..but if you read the first line of the topic:I just wouldn't spend that money on it and neither would most people so it's desirability goes down..

also you have to look at it from a different perspective: ofcourse that piece is expensive; it's pure platinum..how about paying 100+ dollars on an inch by an inch of plastic?

Edited May 23, 2018 by Ravelino
adding

[Exetrius]

7 hours ago, Ravelino said:

I just wouldn't spend that money on it and neither would most people so it's desirability goes down..

That's not how desirability works. It's just that the absolute lack of opportunities to obtain it discourages you to want it. I'm sure I will never own a Bugatti Veyron, but is it still desirable? Heck yes!

[MAB]

1 hour ago, Exetrius said:

That's not how desirability works. It's just that the absolute lack of opportunities to obtain it discourages you to want it. I'm sure I will never own a Bugatti Veyron, but is it still desirable? Heck yes!

And presumably you would buy one if the price was right. So if desirability drops and so price drops because of that, then at some point the price is right for someone. Which is exactly what goes on with every other part (and market forces and all that).

[Ravelino]

10 hours ago, Exetrius said:

That's not how desirability works. It's just that the absolute lack of opportunities to obtain it discourages you to want it. I'm sure I will never own a Bugatti Veyron, but is it still desirable? Heck yes!

yeah but even if I had the opportunity I wouldn't do it...there's extra value to a Veyron(supercar) and let's say a BMW 7(Luxury sedan) sure the veyron will cost you 10 times more but if you can afford it there's extra to gain..

It's like someone offers you a Veyron for a million bucks and say you can get it all platinum if you pay the man 10 billion extra..even if you have that kinda money to throw under the bus you wouldn't take it over the regular veyron just because it's shiny unless you have some big itch you can't scratch otherwise

[stevethesquid]

On 5/22/2018 at 8:00 PM, Ravelino said:

also you have to look at it from a different perspective: ofcourse that piece is expensive; it's pure platinum..how about paying 100+ dollars on an inch by an inch of plastic?

I'd rather not confront that perspective because then we can go in circles about what the true universal value of materials are. I think market price is far and away the best way to rank things by supply and demand at the same time and don't see a point in using any other metric unless you're trying to talk about just supply or just demand.

If you assume an economically ideal market for an object that is completely unique, supply and demand should trend towards a maximum price where only one person is willing to buy it. Or else they'd sell it to the person willing to pay more. This isn't a perfect model because as people have said, it rarely changes hands. But if you're trying to normalize the supply demand and price of an object to compare to others, I'd guess that the only way you can do that is by assuming a perfect market. If you do this for any unique piece, you get a supply and demand of one, but so far the platinum mask has the highest price. It really doesn't make sense to me to isolate supply or demand from each other or from price. For example, if you isolated demand from price, I think it's easy to say that every lego fan would happily want a chunk of platinum for free, regardless of the price.

TLDR I think price is the only way to compare this stuff.

[James Mathis]

What do you all make of the silver keychains: 2x4 brick, skeleton, and construction worker minifigure made under license from TLG? Where do these rate on the rarity, desirability, and price scale?

silver construction worker minifigure keychain

Worker - Sterling Silver (925) Key Chain at Bricklink

video of the silver skeleton keychain minifigure

Skeleton - Sterling Silver (925) Key Chain

2 x 4 Brick - Sterling Silver (925) Key Chain

Fun topic to read through and discover all of the rare, collectible, and pricey items.

-James

[Thedarkmaster2]

On 4/29/2018 at 3:11 PM, stevethesquid said:

There is only one in existence,

Has that ever been confirmed? We just know of one released

[knotian]

As of now it may be the rechargeable battery

[Bopebo7]

The rarest piece is by far the red Darth Vader helmet. It was only released in 1999 and it's value is $500 dollars right now on eBay. By far most expensive piece.

[LEGO Historian]

On 2/3/2018 at 3:46 AM, Marcus Ho said:

I think the rarest and most expensive piece might be the 24k golden 2x4? I am not sure since I am not really an expert to this...?

24K gold is at about $1335 an ounce, while pure platinum is $835 an ounce.  Those 2x4 solid gold bricks were given to special employees of TLG on their milestone anniversary.  A deep pocket buyer recently asked if I knew anyone who had one... he was willing to pay $15K for it... which is what the platinum Bionicle mask went for.

Interestingly enough I found out why platinum costs more than gold in jewelry.  Platinum is so hard that it can be 95% pure and fashioned into jewelry... while gold is so soft that 14 Carat gold (approx. 58% pure) requires more other metals mixed with the gold to make it usable as jewelry.

[Thedarkmaster2]

23 hours ago, Bopebo7 said:

. It was only released in 1999 and it's value is $500 dollars right now on eBay. By far most expensive piece.

why and where was that Red Vader mask released?

[LEGO Historian]

9 hours ago, Thedarkmaster2 said:

why and where was that Red Vader mask released?

Red was the color that TLG uses for testing new moulds.  So it was a TLG test piece that got out of the factory... rather than found in any set.

Apparently red is the easiest color to determine if the mould has a problem, by looking at red test strikes.

Here is a very rare 1960s garage baseplate... (Bricklink part 820)... only found in white and gray in the 1960s... a red test strike.  They made this piece as a regular item in red from 1955-57, and those can sell up to $200 each (in mint).  This is the only 1960s version known (this one has LEGO on the studs, the earlier one does not)... and as this is the only known piece, this could easily be bid up to $500 or more at auction... if it ever came up for sale.

 

Image from my Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide chapter on LEGO prototype parts.

 

 

Edited March 18, 2019 by LEGO Historian

[MAB]

On 3/16/2019 at 4:59 PM, Bopebo7 said:

The rarest piece is by far the red Darth Vader helmet. It was only released in 1999 and it's value is $500 dollars right now on eBay. By far most expensive piece.

1

I have seen various estimates of how many there are. The one on BL right now claims 60-80 were made. In the past others have guessed at 400-500. Plus this wasn't ever released, in the sense of being sold as part of a set or at a BAM station by LEGO.

[Thedarkmaster2]

2 hours ago, MAB said:

BAM station by LEGO.

what is that?

[Exetrius]

1 hour ago, Thedarkmaster2 said:

what is that?

Build-a-Minifigure in LEGO brand stores.

[Thedarkmaster2]

8 hours ago, Exetrius said:

Build-a-Minifigure in LEGO brand stores.

Oh okay, but does that count as a "set?"

 

[Exetrius]

29 minutes ago, Thedarkmaster2 said:

Oh okay, but does that count as a "set?"

 

Not really as a set, but it counts as an official release. There are/have been quite a number of (recolour) pieces exclusive to BAM, hence I think it was brought up here.