REVIEW: COINS AND HISTORICAL MEDALS 1-2 FEBRUARY

The Nobel Prize medal awarded to the astonishing and inspiring chemist Archer Martin in 1952 sold for £150,000 at Noonans on 2 February. The buyer was a private collector in Europe, who was bidding over the telephone.

As Peter Preston-Morley, Special Projects Director in the Coins department at Noonans commented: “Archer Martin was a brilliant scientist whose discoveries led to extraordinary advances in medicine and other fields and won him the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1952, but cruelly could not help his own mental decline. He was a fearless guinea pig for drug testing to transform the lives of Alzheimer’s sufferers and delighted researchers when his condition improved.”

 

Other highlights in the auction an Edward VI (1547-1553) Half-Sovereign, pictured here.

Dating to the Second period (January 1549-April 1550), and from the Tower mint, it shows the young king crowned and wearing a breastplate in a fine and well-preserved portrait.

It sold for a double-top estimate £8,000.