The octopus is one of nearly 5m Lego pieces that fell into the sea in 1997 when a storm hit a cargo ship 20 miles off Land’s End, Cornwall. While 352,000 pairs of flippers, 97,500 scuba tanks, and 92,400 swords went overboard, the octopuses are considered the most prized finds as only 4,200 were onboard.
To clarify, the octopus mold itself isn’t particularly rare or expensive. The article refers to this individual piece as a “holy grail” because among the parts of the Cornwall flotsam, the “octopuses are considered the most prized finds as only 4,200 were onboard” in the lost cargo. The family in the article has been scavenging for years to collect the various parts, so this is something that is valuable to their subset of collectors but not really valuable to the typical Lego collector or fan.
So, if this is in fact from 1997 it would have been on the beach a long time. I myself have beach-combed legos and the ABS is in no way nearly as good condition as this when it’s been out to sea a while.
Probably by the degree and type of erosion, I would guess. Sellers and traders of these pieces also likely would have to keep up some level of reputability in order to remain in the market.
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