WEB CHUTNEY

A diamond-encrusted crocodile-skin Hermes handbag with white gold details has broken the record for the world’s most expensive ever sold at auction, fetching nearly $300,000 at a Hong Kong sale.

The auction house Christie’s said, “It was the world record price for any handbag sold at auction,” Bingle Lee, a Hong Kong-based spokesman for Christie’s, told AFP.

Christie’s senior Asia vice-president of handbags and accessories, Matthew Rubinger, said the bag went to a private collector but he could not disclose who the buyer was or where they were from.

The new record beat one set last year, also in Hong Kong, when a fuchsia-colored Hermes bag sold for $222,912.