The gold seal of Li Zhen, an official executed for graft, fetched 165,000 yuan (US$20,120) at an auction in Shijiazhuang in Hebei Province on Wednesday.

A woman bought the seal, which had a reserve price of 8,000 yuan. She denied any relationship with the former head of the tax department in Hebei.

A total of 619 articles were on sale at Wednesday's auction, with a total reserve price of more than 2 million yuan. They included Li's luxury clothes, gold and silver articles, calligraphies and paintings of celebrities, jade, watches and wine. Only 288 articles were sold.

The articles were not as valuable as imagined, said a bidder from the south. "Li had received many gifts, but he might not know that many of them were counterfeit," said the bidder.

Organizers said they might hold another auction.

Li Zhen was executed Nov. 13, 2003, for taking bribes totaling 8.148 million yuan and misappropriating public funds totaling 29.67 million yuan, of which 2.7 million yuan made its way into his own pocket.

(Shenzhen Daily April 16, 2004)