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Alfred Nobel

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:40,000.00 - 50,000.00 USD
Alfred Nobel

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Auction Date:2015 Apr 15 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:236 Commercial St., Suite 100, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
Three exceedingly rare ALSs, each signed “A. Nobel,” totaling four pages, 5 x 8, dated between 1880 and 1895. Letters to Alarik Liedbeck, Nobel’s friend and collaborator. The first letter is written in French, one page, dated October 10, 1880, and includes a small diagram sketched in the second paragraph. In full (translated): “I have your letter of 10/12. Could not the bottom be set up in the following way: [sketch] Point A would be 10 to 20 centimeters higher than B. It seems to me then that part B would be also well stirred, and that this way there would not be any unused acid, not attacked by the glycerin, as this will happen in this large pipe that starts from the bottom of the device. There you fill it up with 50 d—this could be done; but what a nuisance. If you replenish it with the recuperated acid as it is less dense that the mixture, it will mix with it, and you will only get a nuisance, with no benefit. The above layout seems preferable to me. Think about it.”

The second letter is written in Swedish, one page, dated January 8, 1886, and reads, in part (translated): “Worldly cosmopolitans who just yesterday were so merry ought to be self-described connoisseurs of pleasure, provided that [our] fathers are not so full of bluster as to act like potbellied gastronomes, as well as the heart’s legitimate expectations….And so for now Happy New Year, my old and faithful friend, and may it go well for you and yours in happiness and…health, as fondly wished to you from [your] old worn-out hypochondriac.”

The final letter is also in Swedish, two pages on two adjoining sheets, dated February 6, 1895. Letter reads, in part (translated): “I experienced not so tiny a shock when some days ago I had the chance to see [the] letter from Sohlman that you were lying in bed ill in Christiania. Although he wrote that you were in full recovery and you had probably already travelled off…You are surely traveling too lightly dressed: even Alarik’s health is not made of steel and cannot be cured with ice….I am in great debt to you but we can settle up when we meet. If this year treats us well we can more or less have fun messing about anew, for there is much ongoing and partly planned.” Scattered creases and the central horizontal fold of the 1895 letter almost completely separated, otherwise overall fine condition.

Alarik Liedbeck was, both personally and professionally, one of the most important figures in Alfred Nobel’s life. A childhood friend, fellow chemist, and brilliant explosives engineer, he served as Nobel’s most trusted advisor from the inception of his first company, Nitroglycerin AB, in 1864. As business developed and expanded, Liedbeck oversaw the construction of new factories, revolutionizing the field with innovative manufacturing methods and new machinery of his own design—especially effective in reducing the risk in handling explosives. Also mentioned in the final letter of this collection is Ragnar Sohlman, Nobel’s assistant and executor of his will, which stipulated that the money he left behind be used for prizes in physics, chemistry, peace, physiology or medicine, and literature; in 1900, Sohlman established the Nobel Foundation to handle the distribution of the prizes. Letters from the world-changing chemist are phenomenally rare, and this collection—to one of his closest friends, crucial in his own success, and with reference to the Nobel Foundation’s founder—is especially remarkable.