Two Boeing 747 jumbo jets sold in China Taobao auction

Two Boeing 747 planes have been sold on the Chinese e-shopping website Taobao for more than 320m yuan ($48m; £36m).

The jumbo jets are from a defunct cargo company and the court handling the bankruptcy had been trying to sell them for years.

Six previous offline auctions failed and so the planes were eventually put up online.

Highest bidder and new proud owner is Chinese carrier SF Airlines, beating out 25 other interested parties.

Taobao is an online auction website similar to eBay, owned by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.

The planes have been in storage in the cities of Shanghai and Shenzhen since 2013, after their owner, Jade Cargo International, filed for bankruptcy in September that year.

They were seized by a court in the southern city of Shenzhen which since then had been looking for a buyer.

Still one jet left to go

Ever wanted to own your own Boeing 747 and worried you missed your chance? Fret not, there's another freighter on offer which wasn't sold.

According to Chinese news agency Xinhua, the third jet could not be sold because there was only one buyer who'd registered for the auction.

It's not the first time in fact that online auction sites sell somewhat unusual items for millions of dollars.

The highest ever sale on eBay was a $85m deposit for a superyacht in 2006, topping the previous number one, a Gulfstrem II charter jet sold for $4.9m.

 

 

Photo copyright: TAOBAO.COM. Caption: The auction got 26 bids and more than 800,000 viewers