[imagesource: Flickr / World Economic Forum]
In 1993, FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for bringing to a close the rule of the apartheid regime and “laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa”.
If you’ve read The Long Walk to Freedom you’ll know that process wasn’t a smooth ride and talks looked to have derailed multiple times before an agreement was reached.
This week, it emerged that the award was stolen from de Klerk’s home in Fresnaye, Cape Town. The story was first broken by News24:
Alongside the medallion, significant pieces of jewellery belonging to De Klerk’s widow, Elita, were also taken from a safe inside the home. Elita de Klerk confirmed the theft to News24 when approached this week and said it was difficult for her to place a financial value on the items taken…
“I realised that we were robbed in April of this year. On 5 April, I went to the safe and the safe was open. I had returned from an overseas trip on the fourth, so I remember the dates. Unfortunately, the safe was nearly empty,” Elita said.
Elita said the main suspect was a man who had worked for the family for seven years.
A case of theft has been opened but police have thus far been unable to track the suspect down. Elita isn’t hopeful they will find the man or the loot, and I’d say she’s on the money.
Flogging the jewellery is one thing but it might be a tad more difficult to cash in on the Nobel Prize. It’s not really the sort of thing you can sell at the local pawn shop.
What we do know for sure is that it’s worth a pretty penny, reports TimesLIVE:
The prize is an 18-carat gold medal and weighs 196 grams. Each prize is said to be worth about $969,000 (about R17m). It is handed out with a diploma and gold medal.
The Nobel prize medal may be worth even more than its weight in gold if it goes on auction.
In 2015, Nobel laureate Leon Max Lederman’s Nobel prize sold at auction for $765,000 (R13m). Lederman’s family used the money to pay for medical bills associated with the scientist’s battle with dementia.
That’s actually a pittance compared to what other Nobel prizes have sold for on auction.
James Watson’s 1962 Nobel medal was sold for $4,76 million (roughly R83 million) in 2014. Last year, Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov auctioned his Nobel Peace prize off to raise funds for Ukraine and that went for $103,5 million, which is just shy of R1,8 billion.
In light of the theft, the de Klerk family was given a gold-plated replica medallion of the prize in July.
That will just have to do until, if ever, the original is located.
