July 18, 2007	Wednesday	Rajab 02, 1428

ISLAMABAD, July 17: A Swiss wristwatch worth Rs800,000 is among 248 precious items up for auction at an exclusive event for top government officials. No private citizen will be allowed in the bidding process to be held on July 23 under the aegis of the cabinet division.

The precious items had been gifted by foreign dignitaries to Pakistani leaders and top government officials and were now being auctioned off to government servants at the cabinet division’s Toshakhana. The source and recipient of the gifts were not made public.

It would be interesting to know who gifted the luxury watch manufactured by Breguet to whom and what its current market price was. It was, however, understood that a public auction would have attracted greater competition. Breguet was founded in 1775 by Abraham Louis Breguet following his marriage to the daughter of a prosperous French bourgeois. Queen of France Marie Antoinette Louis XVI had been among the few initial customers. The watch functions include the clock, a perpetual calendar, a repeater, a thermometer, a chronograph and a power reserve.

How many aristocrats bid for the watch and who will be crowned as the bourgeois through the highest bid remains to be seen. “Mind it the price tag is a discounted one as fixed by bureaucrats,” an official told Dawn.

The price of the various precious items varies, with some being as expensive as Rs800,000 and others as cheap as Rs25. The reserve price of the Breguet wristwatch has been fixed at Rs800, 000, followed by Rs500, 000 for a Rolex wristwatch. Some Daytona watches are priced at Rs300, 000 each. The list also includes a Corum 18 karat gold watch at Rs250,000 and a Rs200,000 Alan Philipe.

An antique painting of the founder of Pakistan has been priced at Rs35,000. The items also include neck-ties with a price tag of Rs75-150 per piece.

A total of 60 watches are on sale, followed by 30 metallic items, 18 gold ornaments, 10 wooden gifts, 11 carpets and more than 100 miscellaneous items.

Under the rules, the original recipients are entitled to keep the gifts by depositing only 15 per cent of the real price of the items in the government treasury. In case they opt not to retain it, they are required to surrender the items to the federal government’s Toshakhana.

The leftover items are then later auctioned off to government servants at a reserve but discounted price fixed by a committee of senior government officials. The officials have now been asked to submit their sealed bids keeping in mind the reserve prices written against each item on July 23. These items are currently on display in the cabinet division but the people cannot participate in the auction.