14 DAY TRIAL // Just yesterday, the Nobel Prize gold medal awarded to molecular biologist James Watson back in 1962 for the discovery of the structure of DNA was sold at an event organized by auction house Christie's in New York City, US.
When this auction was announced, Christie's said that, all things considered, the medal would sell for about $2.5 million (€2 million) to $3.5 million (€2.8 million). As it turns out, the auction house's estimate was seriously off.
Thus, recent news on the topic says that James Watson's 1962 Nobel Prize gold medal actually sold for a whopping $4.76 million (€3.85 million). It is understood that this is the highest price to have so far been paid for a Nobel gold medal.
The details of the auction
The medal auctioned off in New York City, US, this past December 4 has a diameter of precisely 66 millimeters (roughly 2.6 inches). It is made of 23 carat gold and it shows the profile bust of Alfred Nobel, the chemist who established the Nobel Prizes in his 1895 testament.
Information shared with the public by Christie's says that the Nobel medal was won by a buyer who bid for it by phone. The buyer said that they would like to remain anonymous, the auction house details.
About a year ago, the Nobel medal awarded to James Watson's colleague Francis Crick was auctioned off as well. However, this other medal sold for just half of what the anonymous buyer paid for James Watson's award.
Commenting on the outcome of the auction, molecular biologist James Watson, who is now 86 years old, said that he never expected his medal to prove this popular. “I'm very pleased. I wanted to be at least equal to Crick, but this exceeded his,” the scientist told the press.
As detailed by Nature, the biologist's notes for his Nobel acceptance speech and for a lecture he delivered following the ceremony were sold as well and fetched $365,000 (€296,000) and $245,000 (€198,000), respectively.
How the molecular biologist landed the Nobel medal
Together with colleagues Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins and Francis Harry Compton Crick, who passed away quite a while ago, scientist and biology enthusiast James Watson was the winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
The researchers were awarded this Nobel Prize for their discovery of the structure of DNA, which is basically a molecule that encodes the genetic instructions living organisms need in order to function and develop properly.
More precisely, it was this team of scientists who, together with researchers Rosalind Franklin and Linus Pauling, found that DNA has a double-stranded structure and serves to transmit information in living material.
James Watson, Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins and Francis Harry Compton Crick were each awarded a Nobel Prize gold medal for their work in a ceremony held on December 10, 1962 in the city of Stockholm, in Sweden.
