A relative bargain as Einstein’s scribbles could fetch £145,000
TWO original drafts of Albert Einstein’s published work – including a handwritten General Theory of Relativity – could fetch £145,000 at auction.
The first, a two-page manuscript written in German, has an estimated sale price of £130,000.
The document, dated 1922, was the physicist’s first published piece as a Nobel laureate.
According to RR Auction, of Boston, USA, the item is “the most spectacular Einstein manuscript we have ever offered”.
Robert Livingston, RR’s executive vice-president, said: “With important content and a significant date within the context of Einstein’s career, this is a truly remarkable piece.”
Written as a critique of a paper by author Erich Trefftz, the manuscript features a modification to Einstein’s relativity theory.
The Cosmological Constant was an adjustment the German-born genius introduced in 1915 to make the maths in his theory add up.
The second piece, signed “A Einstein”, on Earth’s Shifting Crust, with original hand-drawn diagrams, equations and angles, has an estimated price of £15,000.
RR’s auction on June 13 also includes US presidential autographs from George Washington to Franklin D Roosevelt for £36,00 and a financial document by Sir Isaac Newton for £15,000.
A 1924 postcard from Mahatma Gandhi to British suffragette Dr Annie Besant can be bought for £15,000 and a letter from electric light bulb inventor Thomas Edison is going for £5,000.