China’s last dynasty’s, Qing Dynasty, last king’s watch was sold on Tuesday for a record HK$49 million ($6.2 million).
The auction house said that an Asian collector in Hong Kong purchased Aisin-Gioro Puyi’s unique Patek Philippe watch, over the phone. The hammer price was HK$40 million ($5.1 million), which does not include the buyer’s premium fee.
It is “the highest result” for any wristwatch that was formerly an emperor’s, according to Thomas Perazzi, head of watches at auction house Phillips Asia, who was speaking to Reuters.
The watch has a little story behind. Puyi gifted the one of just eight known Patek Philippe Reference 96 Quantieme Lune watches to his Russian interpreter when he was imprisoned by the Soviet Union, according to the auction house. It surpassed its earlier projection of $3 million.
Puyi, who was born in 1906 and assumed the throne at the age of two, was the final ruler of China’s Qing dynasty.
A Patek Philippe watch that belonged to the previous Ethiopian emperor, Haile Selassie, sold at auction in 2017 for $2.9 million, together with other timepieces held by emperors. At an auction in 2017, a Rolex watch that belonged to Bao Dai, the last emperor of Vietnam, fetched $5 million.
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