A wristwatch that once belonged to the last Chinese emperor, Pu Yi, is up for auction in Hong Kong on May 23 by Phillips auction house.

The watch is expected to cost over $3 million due to its rarity. This Patek Philippe Article 96 Quantieme Lune of 8 currently existing in the world, according to the auction house Phillips.

It is not known exactly how Pu Yi acquired the watch, but records show that it was originally sold through a luxury goods store in Paris.

Phillips has historical documents that show that the former emperor carried the watch with him when he spent five years in a Soviet prison, and later presented it to his Russian translator and friend of those years, Georgy Permyakov.
Meanwhile, Permyakov kept the watch until his death in 2005. The clock passed to his heirs and finally moved to the Phillips house in 2019.

Pu Yi’s life was filmed in 1987 thanks to Bernardo Bertolucci’s Oscar-winning film The Last Emperor.

However, he was allowed to keep his title and continued to live prosperously in the palace until 1924, when he was forced to flee during a coup d’état. He allied himself with the Japanese, who made him a puppet emperor in the state of Manchuria from 1934 to 1945 (during which time he also acquired a watch). At the end of World War II, he was captured by Soviet troops while trying to escape from Manchuria and spent 5 years in prison.

Pu Yi ended up in a Chinese “re-education” prison for ten years before being released to live out the rest of his life until 1967 as a private citizen.

Source: CNN