Francis Crick’s Nobel Prize for DNA Discovery Brings $2.27+ Million at Heritage Auctions
NEW YORK — 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,” or what would become known as DNA, sold on April 11, 2013, for $2.27+ million (including Buyer’s Premium) as the highlight of Heritage Auctions’ Historical Manuscripts Signature® Auction at the Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion.
“This auction, given the international attention is received, showed the continuing importance of Crick’s, Watson’s and Franklin’s discovery 60 years after they made it,” said Sandra Palomino, Director of Historic Manuscripts at Heritage Auctions. “This medal is the physical embodiment of the importance that discovery represented and, as such, worth every bit of the final $2.27+ million price realized.”
The medal sold to Jack Wang, the CEO of Biomobie, a Shanghai, China, biomedical firm, who had flown in for the auction.
“Dr. Crick’s Nobel Prize medal and diploma will be used to encourage scientists unraveling the mysteries of the Bioboosti, a bio electrical signal that may control and enable the regeneration of damaged human organs,” he said. “The discovery of the Bioboosti may launch a biomedical revolution like the discovery of the structure of DNA. It may recover damaged human organs and retard the aging process, achieving the goal of self recovering from disease and poor health conditions. “
Crick’s Nobel Prize has been kept in a safe deposit box in California since Crick’s widow passed away, and was been consigned to auction by his heirs. It is one of 10 lots consigned by the family, including Crick’s endorsed Nobel Prize Check, dated Dec. 10, 1962, which realized $77,675.
In addition, 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.
“The discovery of the structure of DNA launched a scientific revolution and forever changed human understanding of life,” said Sandra Palomino, Director of Historical Manuscripts for Heritage Auctions.
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.
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