An 8th-century tortoiseshell vanity box, said to be a gift from the Tang Dynasty palace to Japan’s Emperor Shomu, will be auctioned in Hong Kong and may fetch more than HK$40 million ($5 million).

The octagonal box, measuring 35.6 centimeters across and embedded with mother-of-pearl and amber in shapes of flowers, is the highlight of Sotheby’s planned sale of antiques, gems and paintings on April 8.

The item had once resided at the repository of the Todaiji, or Great Eastern Temple, in the southern Japanese prefecture of Nara.

Artworks belonging to the late Gianni Versace sold at a London auction for more than twice the presale estimate, the second time in a month the public sale of a famed fashion designer’s items had defied the economic slump.

The 545-lot sale of the contents of Villa Fontanelle, Versace’s early 19th-century mansion on the shores of Lake Como, fetched 7.4 million pounds ($10.5 million) last night, against a presale top estimate of 2.8 million pounds.

Like the Saint Laurent sale, the Versace sale was a chance to pick up pieces personally selected by a man of great taste.

According to the art website Artdaily, the owner of Torpedo Comics has paid $ 317,200 at auction for the first edition of Action Comics, featuring the debut adventures of Superman.

John Dolmayan, drummer for System of a Down and owner of Torpedo Comics, is now the owner of the first edition of Action Comics, from June of 1938 which is famous for having in its pages the debut of the “Man of Steel”.

This sets a record price for a comic book, but far from the $500,000 that Comic Connect estimated it to be worth.

Toy retailer ToysRUs has paid $5.1m for the Toys.com domain name.

It is believed to be the biggest payout for a domain this year but has some way to go to beat the $14m paid for sex.com in 2007 or the $9.5m paid for porn.com.

“Toys.com is going to put them in the top search ranking and is likely to give them kudos in terms of brand recognition,” said Sedo’s business development manager Nora Nanayakkara.

Antiquorum Auctioneers sale of Important Collectors’ Wristwatches, Pocket Watches & Clocks realized the impressive sum of $8,707,724.

“Our March 4th and 5th auction confirms the continuous enthusiasm on behalf of collectors for watches with historical significance and exceptional timepieces. Despite continued global economic concern, we have achieved tremendous results for our first auction of 2009,” said Evan Zimmermann, President and CEO, Antiquorum.

The star lot was indisputably Gandhi’s pocket watch, sandals, glasses, bowl and thali, but another extremely significant lot was the unique and historically important “Kennedy Onassis” Wristwatch.

On March 23rd, online jewelry retailer Bidz.com will auction off a gold and diamond tiara designed by the late Gianni Versace to benefit the Aid for AIDS charity, with an opening bid of $699,000 US Dollars.

The one-of-a-kind tiara, which contains over 1,200 diamonds and is worth an estimated $3 million, has been worn by celebrities including Madonna, Amber Valletta and Donatella Versace.

The Versace Tiara, also known as the Tiara, won the prestigious De Beers Diamonds International Award in 1995.