Can a Nobel Medal Be Given Away or Sold? Machado Presents Her 2025 Peace Prize Medal to Trump

Venezuelan opposition leader and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado presented her Nobel Peace Prize medal to President Donald Trump during a White House meeting on Jan. 15, 2026—an event that took place in the wake of U.S. forces capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Why This Matters

The Nobel Prizes are explicitly tied to their laureates, but possession of a medal does not change who is officially recorded as the recipient. Machado told Fox News she gave the medal “because he deserves it,” adding that she presented it “on behalf of the people of Venezuela.” Trump had publicly sought the Peace Prize before Machado received it.

What the Nobel Committee Says

“The Nobel Prize and the laureate are inseparable,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said in a statement. “Regardless of what may happen to the medal, the diploma, or the prize money, it is and remains the original laureate who is recorded in history as the recipient of the prize.”

Notable Cases of Medals Changing Hands

Although the official record of the laureate does not change, medals, diplomas, and prize money have at times been donated, loaned, auctioned, or sold. Below are several notable examples:

Dmitry Muratov (2021)

The Russian journalist who shared the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize auctioned his medal in 2022 for $103.5 million and donated the proceeds to UNICEF to benefit Ukrainian refugee children. That sale remains the highest price paid for a Nobel medal.

Kofi Annan (2001)

Former U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan, a co-recipient of the 2001 Peace Prize, had his medal donated by his widow, Nane Annan, in 2024 to the United Nations office in Geneva, where it is on permanent public display.

Christian Lous Lange (1921)

Norway’s first Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Christian Lous Lange (awarded jointly with Hjalmar Branting in 1921), has a family loan that placed his original medal on public display at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo since 2005—the only original Peace Prize medal permanently exhibited in Norway.

Carlos Saavedra Lamas (1936)

The Argentine foreign minister who won the 1936 Peace Prize for helping to end the Chaco War later had his medal sold at auction for $1.1 million to a private buyer in Asia; the sale was handled by the estate of a New York collector who had owned the medal for about a decade.

Francis Crick and James Watson (1962)

Crick’s medal (awarded with James Watson and Maurice Wilkins for the discovery of DNA’s double helix) was sold by his heirs in 2013 for roughly $2 million. Watson sold his own medal in 2014 for about $4.76 million—an auction purchase that was later returned to him by the buyer.

William Faulkner (1949)

Faulkner’s 1949 Literature Prize medal was offered at auction in 2016 but failed to sell when bidding stopped below the reserve price; its current location is not publicly known.

Knut Hamsun (1920)

The Norwegian novelist Knut Hamsun, awarded the 1920 Literature Prize, sold his medal to German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels after meeting him in 1943.

Leon Lederman (1988) and David Thouless (2016)

Leon Lederman, who shared the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physics, sold his medal in 2015 for $765,002 to help cover medical expenses. David Thouless’s family donated his 2016 Physics Prize medal to Trinity Hall at the University of Cambridge, where it is on display for students.

Bottom Line

Possession of a medal can change hands for many reasons—charitable fundraising, estate decisions, medical bills, or public display—but the Nobel Committee emphasizes that these transfers do not alter the historical record of who was awarded the prize.

Contact: letters@time.com