How much for your Nobel prize? A buyer’s guide to the world’s top trophies
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Version 0 of 1. They may be the trophies that every scientist, actor or athlete dreams of winning, but sometimes even the world’s top awards are just clutter. That at least is the message from the retired experimental physicist Leon Lederman, who is flogging his Nobel prize medal. In a high-brow equivalent of cash in the attic, the 92-year-old says he is selling the medal because it is just taking up space in his log cabin. Lederman used his original prize money to buy his holiday home and now wants to get rid of the 1988 trophy. “The prize has been sitting on a shelf somewhere for the last 20 years,” he says. “It seems like a logical thing to do.” But Lederman is not the first Nobel winner to clear out his cabinet. Last year, James Watson, who helped to discover the double-helix structure of DNA, put his own medal up for auction, only for the new owner, billionaire Alisher Usmanov, to return it to the biologist – despite shelling out £2.6m. In fact, just about every one of the world’s most coveted awards has found its way on to the market at some point. Here’s a buyer’s guide ... Oscars Harold Russell overcame objections from the Academy to sell his Oscar for the 1946 movie The Best Years of Our Lives. The veteran, who lost both his hands in the second world war, won two Academy Awards for the movie, despite never having acted before. In 1993, he sold his statuette for $60,500, (£39,400) saying he needed the money. Although it is estimated that 150 Oscars have been sold, in the 1950s the Academy started asking winners to sign agreements saying they would not sell their statuettes without first offering the Academy the chance to buy them back for $1. Last year, the relatives of an art director who won an Oscar for his 1942 film, My Gal Sal, found themselves facing legal action when they tried to sell the trophy they had inherited. But the rules didn’t stop Michael Jackson, who bought the 1939 Best Picture Oscar for Gone With the Wind in 1999 for $1.5 million. Grammys For guitarist Dave Burgess, his Grammy was a much-needed nest egg when a family member became ill. He won the top music award for his jukebox classic Tequila, recorded in 1958 with other session musicians. But last month the 80-year-old musician decided to sell it to pay for medical bills, putting it up for auction with a $30,000 reserve price, despite objections from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, which hands out the awards. Olympic medals While winning an Olympic medal may take blood, tears and years of training, buying one at auction won’t make you break out into a sweat. Athletes sell them because of financial hardship (Cuban athletes are apparently often quick to sell theirs), or for medical bills (ice hockey player Mark Wells sold his gold medal after a rare genetic condition affected his spinal cord). Some athletes cash-in on their hardware to help good causes. Heavyweight boxer Wladimir Klitschko, who won a gold medal in 1996, sold his for $1m to raise money for a charitable foundation he set up for Ukrainian children. Wimbledon trophies Swedish tennis star Bjorn Borg sold five silver-gilt Wimbledon trophies – only to buy them back again. The trophies were miniature replicas of the cup first presented at the All England Club in 1887 for his run of wins between 1976 and 1980. In 2006, Borg said he wanted the financial stability the money would bring. But news of the sale created an uproar among the public and tennis players alike – with John McEnroe even calling Borg and pleading with him to think again. In the face of so much passion, Borg decided the trophies were, after all, of sentimental value and ended up buying them back from the auction house. “I don’t want to say how much, but it cost me a lot,” he told the Daily Mail a year later. “Yet I consider it worth it.” Golden Globes and Emmys Actor Burt Reynolds says selling hundreds of items of memorabilia, including two Golden Globe awards, was all part of down-sizing as he grew older. But the 68-year-old was also facing outstanding mortgage repayments before he decided to sell off some of his possessions – which included boxing gloves signed by Mohammed Ali and a present from Dolly Parton. His 1998 Golden Globe Award for Boogie Nights went for $21,250, his 1990-91 Emmy Award for $28,125 and his 1983 People’s Choice Award for $10,625. |