Nobel prize medals usually are not simply awards. They carry wealthy histories that replicate the lives and instances of their recipients. In some instances, the Nobel prize medals haven't remained with their house owners, and even the broader household. In 123 years of the Nobel prize, medals have been stolen, confiscated, dissolved, met with controversy and auctioned off. Here we discover the varied fates of Nobel prize medals all through their historical past.
While we’ve checked out most of the instances the place the rightful house owners had their medals taken away, it’s not unknown for laureates or their households to promote them. Since 2014, Nobel prize medals have began to be auctioned comparatively ceaselessly – earlier than then just a few had been offered within the historical past of the prize.
The first chemistry Nobel prize medal to go beneath the hammer was that of Heinrich Wieland, who gained the prize in 1927 for his investigations of the constituents of bile acids and associated substances. His medal was offered at public sale in 2015 for $395,000 (£301,000).
Laura Kirk, public sale supervisor at Nate D. Sanders – an public sale home in Los Angeles, US, that has auctioned various Nobel prize medals – says that in 2014 it reached out to Nobel prize winners as a result of it believed the prize held worth for collectors.
‘In February 2015 we auctioned economist Simon Kuznets’ prize for practically $400,000,’ she says. ‘Since that sale, we’ve auctioned 13 Nobel prizes together with Leon Lederman’s prize for $765,000. In 2024 we’ve auctioned Robert Curl Jr’s Nobel for $442,891 and Richard Synge’s Nobel for $187,500.’
Establishing a price for a Nobel prize is each an artwork and science, she says, however finally some Nobels seize the creativeness of bidders greater than others. ‘One of the most important factors is what the prize was won for: a discovery or invention that had a profound effect on scientific thought or led to applications that helped humankind are always valued the highest,’ says Kirk.
There are a wide range of explanation why Nobel prize medals are auctioned off however normally it's the results of inheritance. ‘It’s not well-known that as well as to the gold Nobel medal, the laureate additionally receives a reproduction medal of the identical dimension product of bronze,’ says Kirk.
‘Families have told us that they appreciate having this bronze medal as a memory of the achievement without having to worry about insuring the gold medal or keeping it safe,’ Kirk explains. ‘The laureate also receives a Nobel certificate and, of course, they have memories of the event through photographs.’
The highest bid for a Nobel prize medal at public sale is $103.5 million by an unnamed purchaser, set by the sale of Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov’s 2021 Nobel peace prize medal in June 2022 to elevate cash for Ukrainian little one refugees.
Prior to this, the costliest Nobel prize medal offered at public sale was James Watson’s 1962 Nobel prize in physiology or medication medal, which offered for $4.76 million at Christie’s in 2014.
This was the primary medal to be offered by a dwelling recipient – Watson is reported to have stated that he determined to promote the medal to permit him to ‘re-enter public life’ after being shunned for making controversial remarks about race in an interview with the Sunday Times in 2007.
He stated he deliberate to donate the proceeds to the University of Chicago, Clare College on the University of Cambridge, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Long Island Land Trust and different charities. The medal was purchased by a Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov who later returned it to Watson.
However, not all medals that go for public sale promote. Recently, 1966 chemistry Nobel prize winner Robert Mulliken’s medal failed to entice any bids, and beforehand the chemistry prize medals of George de Hevesy (1966 winner) and Francis Aston (1922 winner) acquired no bids.
‘It’s uncommon that Nobels obtain no bids,’ Kirk says. ‘Robert Mulliken’s prize was the one one we’ve auctioned that handed.’
‘Auction sales are sometimes unpredictable in both that it could sell for a very high amount or sometimes it doesn’t promote. We’ve been auctioning Nobels so lengthy although – for practically 10 years – that we have now a very good sense of what they will promote for.’
