For Sale: One Nobel Prize Medal (Slightly Used, By Francis Crick)

Hugh Pickens writes "UPI reports that for the first time in the history of Nobel Prize, one of the Nobel Prize medals, along with the diploma presented by the Nobel committee, is on auction — with an opening bid of $250,000. Awarded to Francis Crick, who along with James Watson and Maurice Wilkins won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1962 'for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material,' the medal will be auctioned off in New York City, by Heritage Auctions. The medal has been kept in a safe deposit box in California since Crick's widow passed away in 2007 and a portion of the proceeds will go to the Francis Crick Institute of disease research scheduled to open in London in 2015. '"By auctioning his Nobel it will finally be made available for public display and be well looked after. Our hope is that, by having it available for display, it can be an inspiration to the next generation of scientists," says Crick's granddaughter, Kindra Crick. "My granddad was honored to have received the Nobel Prize, but he was not the type to display his awards; his office walls contained a large chalkboard, artwork and a portrait of Charles Darwin."'"

Comments

Portion of the proceeds?

[AuralityKev]

When I see things like these, especially with grandkids as the spokespeople, it just makes me think it's a cash grab. It's not due to any "inspirational" mojo behind hanging it up somewhere. If that were the case, they should just donate it outright, and maybe have people pay a couple bucks a gander, and toss that to the Francis Crick Institute. Not "a portion" of the proceeds, which could be $10 on a potential windfall.

Re:Portion of the proceeds?

[Feyshtey]

Perhaps the family of Dr. Crick reexamined the value of a Nobel Prize when a Nobel Prize for Peace was awarded to Barack Obama for simply promising to be a nice guy, sans any actual significant personal accomplishments in humanitarian arenas. In many ways the Nobel Prize has become somewhat of a joke, even if one were to discount the award presented to President Obama.

Re:Portion of the proceeds?

[the gnat]

Perhaps the family of Dr. Crick reexamined the value of a Nobel Prize when a Nobel Prize for Peace was awarded to Barack Obama

What exactly is the problem with you people who can't tell the difference between the Nobel Peace prize and the prizes for Physics, Chemistry, or Medicine? What makes you think the two categories have anything to do with one another, either administratively or politically? They could give the Peace prize to Bashar Assad this fall and it would still have zero relevance to the worth of the chemistry prize.

Re:Portion of the proceeds?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's simple, really. He was awarded the prize as a gigantic, "fuck you, good riddance" to the Bush Administration.

It doesn't say anything good about the award or the institution. In fact, I imagine that Obama would (privately) say the same.

Re:Portion of the proceeds?

[Feyshtey]

It says everything about the award, and the current state of the institution. To give the award to a person who has not earned it simply to say "fuck you" to anyone else for any reason shows a disregard for the spirit of the award, not to mention childish petulence. If your reason for the award is accurate then its even more appauling than simply because they bought into propoganda about Obama's intentions rather than judging the man on his actions. Even if everything Obama said he would bring were found to be completely true in the future, the FUTURE is the time to present the award, after a validation of the promises.

Donate to the Rosalind Franklin Society

[jestill]

It would be great to buy this and donate it to the Rosalind Franklin Society ... http://www.rosalindfranklinsociety.org/

Re:They can't be worth that much

[wisnoskij]

This is totally not off topic, Obama's Nobel metal for not being Bush degraded the reputation of all Nobel prices.

Re:For sale: All Nobel peace prizes.

[donscarletti]

They're not worth even that, after Obama got his for sustaining war, torture and murdering own citizens.

Well, he got it for being elected, if they want to give him a prize for sustaining war, torture and murdering own citizens then they're going to have to give him another.

Tom Lehrer famously said that political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I think it's been more or less a joke since well before that.

Though it is awarded by the Norwegian Nobel Committee which has different standards and values to Karolinska Institutet or Swedish Academy of Science.