James Watson to be the first person to sell his Nobel Prize | Hacker News Reader

James Watson to be the first person to sell his Nobel Prize

slate.com

7 pointsdreen4 comments

The first Nobel Prize to be sold by a living recipient? According to www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/about/medals/ :

> documents in the Niels Bohr Archive in Copenhagen show that Niels Bohr's Nobel medal, as well as the Nobel medal of the 1920 Danish Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, August Krogh, had already been donated to an auction held on March 12, 1940 for the benefit of the Fund for Finnish Relief (Finlandshjälpen).

Krogh died in 1949.

I guess they technically gave it away free to Finlandshjälpen, who then in turned around and auctioned it off, so they didn't sell it.

It seems a rather technical point though - add enough qualifiers and most anything becomes a first.

This is offensively pedantic. If you can't see the difference between donating medals for war relief and selling them personal gain then nothing I can say will help.

Bohr and Kroghs actions are inspiring. Gunter Blobel donating his entire monetary reward for rebuilding cultural artifacts in Dresden is laudable... I have no doubt other science laureates, Pauling(?), have generously used the Nobel resources for humanitarian purposes.

Selling your medal for personal gain is just crass.

PS. For more on Bohr, Nazis, and Nobel's check this out.. http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/10/03/140815154/disso... Dissolving and later recasting prizes to keep them from Hitler is pretty cool.

I can accept the charge of being pedantic. The text in the Slate article is "first Nobel laureate in history to [sell the medallion]" while the linked-to article in the Telegraph quotes Christie's auctioneer as "the first Nobel Prize to be sold by a living recipient" so I assume you think the Telegraph is also pedantic for adding the qualifier "living".

"Offensive" I contest. Here I thought I was diminishing his uniqueness.

But "Selling your medal for personal gain is just crass"? That I reject.

I reject the validity of your blanket condemnation of what a winner can do with their prize. Where is the limit? Can a Presidential Medal of Honor winner auction their medal? Purple Heart winner? Pulitzer prize? State spelling bee champion? Or is the Nobel Prize somehow unique?

Would is be crass for a winner to sell the award if they needed the money to pay for a bone marrow transplant? To prevent foreclosure on the house? Provide seed money for a new business? Surely you don't think all possible cases of personal gain are crass.

Crick's family sold the medal after his death. 70% went to research organizations but I don't know about the other 30%. Is it okay for part of that to go towards personal gain for the family members? It had been in storage first in a room and then in a safety deposit box for 50 years. Why should he, or any other prize winner, wait until death to sell the prize?

P.S. The account about dissolving the gold was also in the link I gave.

Calling parent offensive is completely out of line.

Selling is selling, no matter where the money is going, and parent brings up some interesting trivia about the Nobel.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com