A gold bejeweled pocket watch of Sultan Abdülhamid II is among the 20 items belonging to the Ottoman sultans and high-ranking palace officials that are being auctioned.
Items in the collection are being offered for sale with a starting price of $1. However, the watch is expected to fetch $60,000.
On the front cover of the imperial artifact, there are the initials of the sultan's Ottoman pseudonym "al-Ghazi," while the back cover features the initials of his name in Latin letters.
Sultan Abdülhamid II was the 34th ruler of the Ottoman Empire from 1876 to 1909. Abdülhamid ascended the throne as the 99th Islamic caliph at the age of 34, after his elder brother, Sultan Murad V, was deposed due to his mental illness in 1876. Under his rule, the reform movement of Tanzimat (Reorganization) reached its peak. The first Ottoman constitution, Kanun-i Esasi, was proclaimed and Parliament convened. The Ottoman Empire turned into a constitutional monarchy.