Albert Einstein handwritten letter leads at auction

A handwritten letter from Albert Einstein to fellow physicist Wilhelm Wien in 1914 is among the highlights at RR Auction's December 10-ending sale, with bidding on the lot at $23,000.

It concerns the German Physical Society (which Einstein had just joined) and dates to the year before he unveiled his unified theory of relativity, which he references.  

Einstein letter Wien
Einstein wrote this letter to physicist Wilhelm Wien in 1914

It reads in part: "Haber is exerting his best efforts to hold German physicists together within a single society, because in this way greater benefits can be obtained for the members…

"I ask you please not to take offense at my novice meddling in these matters; I know very well that I am inexperienced in these administrative affairs.—It is extraordinarily inspiring here in Berlin...

"In Zurich I had found the proof for covariance in the gravitation equations. Now the theory of relat. really is extended to arbitrary moving systems."

A series of Einstein's letters on relativity made $161,000 at Swann Auction Galleries last year.  

We have this typed, signed letter from Einstein to Corliss Lamont, chairman of the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship.

A draft for a scientific paper by Einstein, valued at $120,000-180,000, features at Profiles in History in California on December 16.

Other lots in the sale include a sketchbook belonging to the great surrealist Rene Magritte, which stands at $17,717.

It features 49 original sketches and dates to 1946. The illustrations closely resemble some of the major works he produced during the 1940s.  

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