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Housed in 21 warehouses, the items on sale at a Brunei auction, are hoped to raise more than $17 million and include aircraft, luxury yachts, crystal chandeliers and gold plated toilet roll holders.
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A playboy prince in Brunei is selling over 10,000 personal items in a step toward cleaning up a financial mess that nearly drove the country to bankruptcy.
Among the items on sale are gold-plated jacuzzis and shower heads, porcelain flamingo statues and gilded rubbish bins. They belong to Prince Jefri Bolkiah's bankrupt development corporation, Amedeo.
The six-day auction is expected to raise as much as £36 million - a fraction of the billions owed to local and foreign creditors.
More than 500 bidders from around the world gathered inside a former Amedeo factory, seeking bargains on gilded toilet paper holders, new fire engines, aircraft simulators, high-grade slabs of marble, factory equipment, crockery and cutlery, and chandeliers. The factory is also for sale.
The sale which began at the weekend, opened with a marble bench that fetched 350 Brunei dollars (£146). A pair of bronze cannons went next for 1,700 Brunei dollars (£715).
For decades, the Brunei royals have figured in the lists of the world's richest people, whose coffers were topped up by rich oil and gas reserves in their tiny enclave on Borneo island in the South China Sea.
Their profligacy has also been legendary - from flying in beauty queens from all over the world for parties on yachts to snapping up hotels purchased in Singapore, London and Paris to use on frequent trips abroad.
Auction officials said that more than 900 packages of furniture and fittings were sold yesterday, with bidding on more expensive items beginning today.
"I am just trying to buy something simple like a sofa seat," said Singaporean businessman Mr Othman Ali, who paid a 1,000 Brunei dollars (£400) refundable deposit to take part in the bidding. "It is more of the novelty of buying something linked to the royalty."
Amedeo, owned by Prince Jefri, younger brother of Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, collapsed under massive debts in the Asian economic crisis in 1997-98, nearly driving the tiny country to bankruptcy.
PA