The world’s largest collectibles auctioneer, Heritage Auctions, is offering for bidding Dr. Francis Crick’s Nobel Prize Medal and Nobel Diploma on April 11, 2013. Medal being auctioned by Crick’s heirs, expected to bring $500,000+ on auction in New York City and has its previewed in London on March 5-6.
The 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine awarded to Dr. Francis Harry Compton Crick, along with Drs. James Dewey Watson and Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins, for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material, will be auctioned with an opening bid of $250.000.
Francis H. C. Crick Nobel Prize Medal
The auction of the medal is a historic moment, marking the first time that a Nobel Prize has been sold at public auction. It has been kept in a safe deposit box in California since Crick’s widow passed away. It is one of 10 lots consigned by the family, including Crick’s endorsed Nobel Prize Check, dated Dec. 10, 1962 and one of his lab coats. The trove also contains nautical logbooks, gardening journals and books from Crick’s personal collection.
The discovery of the structure of DNA launched a scientific revolution and forever changed human understanding of life. Crick, alongside Watson and Wilkins, received his Nobel Prize from the hand of King Gustav VI Adolf of Sweden at the Stockholm Concert Hall on Dec. 10, 1962. Crick’s initials are engraved on the reverse of the medal, along with the year of the prize, 1962, presented in Roman numerals: “F. H. C. Crick/MCMLXII.” The second piece of the Prize, the Nobel diploma two beautifully handwritten, vellum pages, 9.5″ x 13.5″, in Swedish, dated Stockholm, October 18, 1962 is also included.
The Prize’s proceeds will again be used to promote ground-breaking scientific research, as a portion of the sale will be awarded to the new Francis Crick Institute in London set to be completed in 2015.
Francis H. C. Crick Nobel Prize Medal
Francis H. C. Crick Nobel Prize Diploma
Francis H. C. Crick Endorsed Nobel Prize Check
