Press release from the Nobel Foundation

Alfred Nobel’s recovered patent documents now on display at the Nobel Prize Museum

24 June 2025 View in Swedish
Fyndet i Blekinge (17)

The documents found in a summer cottage in Blekinge earlier this spring were handed over to the Nobel Foundation on June 19, 2025. Thomas Rydén from Crafoord Auktioner in Lund handed over the documents to Hanna Stjärne, Executive Director of the Nobel Foundation.

© Nobel Prize Outreach. Photo: Nanaka Adachi

The recently recovered patent documents belonging to Alfred Nobel have been handed over to the Nobel Foundation and will be on public display at the Nobel Prize Museum in Stockholm throughout the summer.

The documents, discovered earlier this year in a summer cottage in Blekinge, include around twenty patents and applications from the 1860s and forward. They offer a unique insight into Alfred Nobel’s inventive spirit and personal motivations.

“It is truly gratifying that they have been found and are in such good condition,” says Hanna Stjärne, Executive Director of the Nobel Foundation. “Due to the great public interest, we have decided to exhibit some of the documents at the Nobel Prize Museum starting today”.

The documents were found by a German couple, who contacted Thomas Rydén at Crafoord Auktioner in Lund. He then reached out to the Nobel Foundation. The documents are believed to have been missing for about 50 years, though how they ended up in the cottage remains a mystery.

Fyndet i Blekinge (5)

Thomas Rydén from Crafoord Auctions in Lund handed over the documents to Ulf Larsson and Hanna Stjärne.

© Nobel Prize Outreach. Photo: Nanaka Adachi

Fyndet i Blekinge (12)

Thomas Rydén from Crafoord Auctions in Lund handed over the documents to Ulf Larsson and Hanna Stjärne.

© Nobel Prize Outreach. Photo: Nanaka Adachi

Fyndet i Blekinge (6)

Ulf Larsson and Hanna Stjärne.

© Nobel Prize Outreach. Photo: Nanaka Adachi

Nobel Foundation

The Nobel Foundation is a private foundation established in 1900 on the basis of the will of Alfred Nobel and the founding statutes promulgated in connection with the will. Its primary purpose is to ensure that the intentions of the will of Alfred Nobel are fulfilled. The Foundation is responsible for ensuring that the assets made available for awarding the Nobel Prize are managed in such a way as to safeguard the economic base of the Prize in a long-term perspective and guarantee the independence of the prize-awarding institutions in their work of selecting Laureates. The Nobel Foundation is also entrusted with managing and carefully developing the trademarks and intangible assets that have been built up during the more than century-long history of the Nobel Prize.

Contacts
+46 8 122 084 45