Although Goldin is mainly associated with selling expensive sports cards and memorabilia, they currently offer a non-sports auction, featuring more than 1,000 lots. The highlights in the auction are a rare first edition copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone from 1997, a sealed 1985 Nintendo Super Mario Bros. graded 9.4, a 1988 Pokemon Holofoil Illustrator Pikachu graded 9, and an extraordinary formula for world peace…
The manuscript was written in full by Albert Einstein during the ongoing Second World War – more precisely, in 1940. At the time, Einstein was in the process of becoming a U.S. citizen, which was finalized on October 1, 1940. Some weeks before, on June 22, Einstein attended an interview with Assistant Secretary of Labor Marshall Dimock for NBC's I'm an American radio broadcast. Due to its content, it's speculated that the manuscript was used as preparation for that interview.
The manuscript's first page is highly interesting since it's divided into two parts. The first part bears handwritten mathematical formulas by Einstein. According to professors at the Einstein Papers Project at CalTech, these are Einstein's work and research within electromagnetic fields.
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The second part, however, is where Einstein's thoughts on how to achieve world peace are written. Notably, everything written on the three pages is in Einstein's hand, including all the corrections. A very remarkable feature of this manuscript is that it combines Einstein's two passions in life: physics and social issues.
One of the more significant statements by Einstein is that he writes, "Is it possible to strive for an international order based on justice while on the other side of the Atlantic, brute force is crushing one democratic country after another?" That's a direct reference to the ongoing war led by the country that Einstein was born in, namely Germany.
Another remarkable statement is that Einstein criticized the League of Nations and presented ideas that "A world state can only ensure peace if its constituent states hand over all their military resources to it." Much of Einstein's statements intertwine with what later became the foundation of the United Nations. Although the U.N. was founded after the war ended in 1945, Einstein was ahead of his time with his groundbreaking ideas.
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He ends the manuscript by writing, "May our America, through the resolute action of its citizens and its statesmen, be spared such an hour!", which is also a reference to him becoming a U.S. citizen, hence "our" America.
As a bonus to the original documents, the manuscript is accompanied by an impressive presentation box entitled "Albert Einstein's Theory of World Peace", which presents copies of all three pages. According to Goldin, it's possible to have the originals displayed in the presentation box. However, many presentation installations often contain copies, while the originals are stored in bank vaults or other very secure places.
In 2021, two very spectacular Einstein manuscripts were sold at auction. One, which included the famous "E=mc2" formula, sold for $1.2 million, and the other, which was a lengthy handwritten "Theory of Relativity" formula, sold for the impressive amount of $13 million.
The auction date for the spectacular "Theory of World Peace" is on November 19. Goldin is currently accepting bids.