$330,000 go to charity - The Telethon committee in Italy, the Consortium for Street Children in Britain and the Macao Caritas in China will divide the profits from a charity auction where a record 330,000 dollars was paid for a 1.5 kg white truffle found last week in the Palaia woods near Pisa.
A Chinese millionaire and the son of an Arab sheik battled for the huge truffle during an auction in Florence.
They were bidding via satellite from Macao and London, respectively. The bidding started at 50,000 dollars.
The truffle is the largest found in the last half-century and is second only to a 2.5 kg truffle found in Tuscany during the 1950s and given to then U.S. president, Dwight Eisenhower.
The initiative was created by Giselle Oberti and organized in collaboration with the all'Unione regionale delle associazioni tartufai toscani (Regional Union of the Tuscan Truffle Sellers Association).
