Enter the dragon: A €630k, 3cm jade one, that is

A tiny jade seal with a catalogue price of €4,000-€6,000 sold to a Chinese internet bidder for an unprecedented €630,000 — 157 times its guide price — at a Co Laois auction.

There was applause in Sheppard’s Irish Auction House in Durrow yesterday after the hammer went down on the final bid for a Chinese Qing Dynasty white jade seal. It was the most expensive item ever sold by Sheppard’s.

In the end, two Chinese collectors battled it out — one bidding on the telephone and the other on the internet.