DNA pioneer Francis Crick letter sells for $5.3m at New York auction

[muriel_volestrangler]

Last edited Thu Apr 11, 2013, 12:07 PM - Edit history (1)

A letter written by scientist Francis Crick describing his discovery of the double helix shape of DNA has been sold for $5.3m (£3.45m).

An anonymous buyer purchased it at a New York auction on Wednesday.
...
The Nobel Prize medal given to Crick for the breakthrough is expected to fetch between $500,000 (£325,000) and "several million" at auction later.
...
It was written more than a month before the pair officially published their work.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-22090344

Highest price ever paid for a letter in an auction.

Update: Nobel medal sold for about $2m:

A Nobel Prize medal honoring the discovery of DNA's twisted ladder shape was sold at auction today (April 11) in New York for more than $2 million.

Francis Crick was one of three men awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the 1953 discovery of the DNA molecule's double-helix structure. Sixty years later, Crick's medal and accompanying diploma fetched a winning bid of $1.9 million at Heritage Auctions. (The final price, including buyer's fees, was $2,270,500).

http://www.livescience.com/28651-crick-dna-nobel-medal-sold.html

[Tansy_Gold]

1. I wonder what they'd pay for a letter from Rosalind Franklin. n/t

[rurallib]

4. yep - a true heroine of science

[MrYikes]

2. I would be more interested in a letter from Crick or Watson to Rosalind Franklin

the scientist who took the x-ray picture of the structure from which Watson deduced the arrangement.
I will forever be "ticked off" over the lack of understanding concerning her level of involvement in the dna unfolding.

[phantom power]

3. +1, she was robbed

I'm pretty sure that if they were up for the award today, Franklin would have also received it. Back then, the glass ceiling was lower, and more pervasive.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. She was dead by the time they gave the award

and they don't give posthumous Nobels.

[phantom power]

7. good point, I always forget that

[MrYikes]

6. It is cool that the first five posts on a thread about Crick concern Franklin