HONG KONG.- Bonhams Hong Kong today (23 November 2010) celebrated its second “Golden Gavel Auction”, when Part II of the world’s finest collection of important Chinese snuff bottles, the Mary and George Bloch Collection, sold 100% and achieved world record prices. Against presale estimates of HK$24,000,000, the sale total was HK$54,832,000 (£4, 437,930) with every one of the 155 rare bottles successfully sold. A good number of the lots sold for twice to four times its estimate. A new world record for a porcelain snuff bottle was reached when Lot 121 sold for a staggering HK$8,384,000 (£678,815), four times its pre-sale estimate of HK$2,000,000. Commissioned by the Qianlong emperor and enamelled in the palace workshops of the Imperial Palace between 1736 and 1760, this extraordinary snuff bottle, decorated with ‘double-gourds’, symbolic of long life, is identical to another rare example still preserved