Einstein's childhood toy up for auction

By AMY SPIRO

Published: JUNE 14, 2019 02:49

The pearl mosaic game once belonging to Albert Einstein (photo credit: KESTENBAUM & COMPANY) — The pearl mosaic game once belonging to Albert Einstein

(photo credit: KESTENBAUM & COMPANY)

The wooden bead game was once owned by the Nobel Prize-winning physicist.

Every parent wants their child to grow up to be a genius. But how many can say they gave their son or daughter the same toy Albert Einstein played with as a kid?

New York City-based auction house Kestenbaum & Company is selling a toy that once belonged to the Nobel Prize-winning scientist.

Known in German as a Perlen-Mosaik-Spiel, aka a pearl mosaic game, the toy is a wooden box, filled with colored wooden beads, that can be used to create images and letters on the box’s hole-punched frame.

The auction house said the item was given by Einstein to its current owner, who has kept it in his possession since the scientist’s death in 1955. The toy was displayed in an exhibit at the Mitsuo Aida Museum from 2005-2006.

“This creative childhood toy served to expand the imagination of a young Albert Einstein, in turn leading to a maturation of mind, that in adulthood, brought to Mankind the most significant scientific theorems of the past millennia,” said Kestenbaum & Company.

The toy – which Kestenbaum estimates as worth $4,000-$6,000 – is being sold alongside several other personal items that once belonging to Einstein, including linen napkins, silver shot glasses and a portrait of the physicist.

The auction is scheduled to be held next Thursday, June 20, in Manhattan.