The Philips Auction House is preparing to offer a wristwatch owned by the last emperor of China, Aisin Gyoro Puyi, for sale, and it is expected to achieve more than $ 3 million when it is offered for sale in Hong Kong, and the high price is partly due to the scarcity of the watch.Reference 96 Quantieme Lunefrom the iconic Patek Philippe brand, is one of only 8 watches known to exist.

The Philips auction house, which handles the sale, said that the exorbitant price of the 86-year-old watch dates back to its history, which saw it being transported to Siberia during the former ruler’s five-year imprisonment in the Soviet Union. The platinum watch features Arabic numerals and rose-gold hands. , and an indication of the “phases of the moon,” according to the site CNN Arabic.

Some of its internal mechanisms date back to 1929, although Swiss watchmaker Patek Philippe didn’t sell this model until 1937.

The Emperor took the watch with him to a Soviet concentration camp

The Philips auction house added that historical documents prove that the former emperor took it with him to a Soviet concentration camp in Khabarovsk, and Puyi later gifted the watch to Georgy Permyakov, who worked as his teacher and translator of the Russian language during his detention.

Emperor Puyi, whose life formed the basis of the 1987 Academy Award-winning film The Last Emperor, ascended the throne as a mere child in 1908 and was forced to abdicate less than four years later when a republican revolution overthrew him. Qing dynasty.

the hour

In 1924, Puyi fled Beijing to form an alliance with Japan, which later appointed him as emperor of the state of “Manchukuo”, in Manchuria, northeastern China, and Soviet forces arrested Puyi after Japan’s defeat in World War II, and held him as a prisoner of war.

According to Phillips, the former emperor gifted the watch to Permyakov in 1950 before he returned to China to stand trial for war crimes. According to a press release, Phillips spent three years researching the watch’s history and confirming its provenance.

picture of the clock

About a decade after his return to China, Puyi was pardoned and lived as a civilian in Beijing until his death in 1967. Meanwhile, Permyakov kept the watch until his death in 2005, and the watch passed to his heirs before being sent to Philips by its owner. current in 2019.

The watch has already been shown in New York, Singapore, London and Taipei, and is on its way to Geneva before returning to Hong Kong, where it will go on sale at the new Philips headquarters in Asia on May 23.