By Joyce Zhou and Jessie Pang
HONG&nbsp;KONG&nbsp;(Reuters) - A&nbsp;watch&nbsp;that was once owned by the&nbsp;last&nbsp;emperor&nbsp;of&nbsp;China's&nbsp;Qing Dynasty, whose life formed the basis of the Oscar-winning film "The&nbsp;Last&nbsp;Emperor," sold for a&nbsp;record&nbsp;HK$49&nbsp;million&nbsp;($6.2&nbsp;million) at a&nbsp;Hong&nbsp;Kong&nbsp;auction&nbsp;on Tuesday.
An Asian collector residing in&nbsp;Hong&nbsp;Kong&nbsp;calling on the phone bought the rare Patek Philippe&nbsp;watch&nbsp;that had belonged to Aisin-Gioro Puyi, according to the&nbsp;auction&nbsp;house.
The hammer price, which excludes the buyer's premium fee, was HK$40&nbsp;million&nbsp;($5.1&nbsp;million).
Thomas Perazzi, head of&nbsp;watches at&nbsp;auction&nbsp;house Phillips Asia, told Reuters that it is "the highest result" for any wristwatch&nbsp;that once belonged to an&nbsp;emperor.
It was one of only eight known Patek Philippe Reference 96 Quantieme Lune timepieces and was gifted by Puyi to his Russian interpreter when he was imprisoned by the Soviet Union, the&nbsp;auction&nbsp;house said. It easily beat a pre-sale estimate of $3&nbsp;million.
Other&nbsp;watches owned by&nbsp;emperors and sold at&nbsp;auction&nbsp;include a Patek Philippe timepiece that belonged to the&nbsp;last&nbsp;Ethiopian&nbsp;emperor, Haile Selassie, which sold for $2.9&nbsp;million&nbsp;in 2017.
A Rolex&nbsp;watch&nbsp;that belonged to the&nbsp;last&nbsp;emperor&nbsp;of Vietnam, Bao Dai, fetched $5&nbsp;million&nbsp;at an&nbsp;auction&nbsp;in 2017.
Born in 1906, Puyi was the&nbsp;last&nbsp;emperor&nbsp;of&nbsp;China's&nbsp;Qing dynasty, who began his reign at two years old.
After Japan&rsquo;s defeat in World War II in 1945, Puyi was captured at&nbsp;China's&nbsp;Shenyang Airport by the Soviet Red Army. He was detained as a war prisoner and incarcerated in a detention camp in Khabarovsk, Russia, for five years.
The&nbsp;auction&nbsp;house said it spent three years collaborating with&nbsp;watch&nbsp;specialists, historians, journalists, and scientists to research the&nbsp;watch's history and verify its provenance.
Perazzi told Reuters that the&nbsp;watch&nbsp;was the finest Patek made at the time.
Journalist Russell Working, who interviewed Puyi's interpreter Georgy Permyakov in 2001, said he gave the&nbsp;watch&nbsp;to Permyakov on his&nbsp;last&nbsp;day in the Soviet Union, shortly before he was extradited back to China.
&ldquo;These were the kind of things he sometimes did to people that were very special to him,&rdquo; Working said.
&nbsp;
(Reporting by Joyce Zhou and Jessie Pang; Editing by Farah Master, Anne Marie Roantree, Sharon Singleton, Mark Porter and Marguerita Choy)

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Last emperor of China's watch sells for record $6.2 million in Hong Kong auction