'God Particle' Nobel Physicist Sells Medal for $ 765,000

By Peter R - 29 May '15 18:23PM

Nobel Prize medal of the physicist who coined the term 'God Particle' fetched $ 765,000 at an auction on Thursday.

According to IB Times, Nobel laureate Leon Lederman decided to auction his 1988 prize medal after it was lying 'somewhere' on a shelf for 20 years. The medal was auctioned by Nate D. Sanders Auction with a starting minimum bid of $ 325,000.

Lederman had won the prize for discovery of muon neutrino in 1962 but he is better known for naming Higgs Boson, the God Particle.

"The prize has been sitting on a shelf somewhere for the last 20 years. I made a decision to sell it. It seems like a logical thing to do," the 92-year old physicist reportedly said.

Lederman's medal was the tenth only prize medal to be sold and second by a living prize winner. The first to be sold by a living winner was biologist James Watson's medal awarded for discovering the DNA's double-helix structure, earned $ 4.7 million last year, the highest ever a Nobel medal has been sold for. á Russian billionaire who bought Watson's medal donated it back to him.