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.

Tom Scott went to visit a couple years back: The beach where Lego keeps washing up

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~~What the fuck, I am 100% positive I have one of those in my childhood Lego crates back in the basement of my mom. Will definitely search for it~~

E: nvm, skipped past the part that they are only special when fished out of the sea spill.

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.