James D. Watson’s fetched $4.76 million in 2014, setting a record. William Faulkner’s failed to sell in 2013, after bidding stalled out at $425,000, short of the minimum.

Image John F. Nash Jr., whose life inspired “A Beautiful Mind.” He died in a car accident last year, at age 86. Credit... Robert P. Matthews/Princeton University, via Getty Images

Now, the Nobel Prize medal belonging to the mathematician John F. Nash, awarded in recognition of his fundamental contributions to game theory, is set to be auctioned at Sotheby’s in New York on Oct. 17. It carries an estimate of $2.5 to $4 million, which if reached will cement the apparent dominance — for now? — of scientists over literary types in the rarefied market for some of the world’s most difficult-to-acquire gold jewelry.

Mr. Nash, whose life inspired the movie “A Beautiful Mind,” won the Nobel Prize for economics in 1994, at a time when he was unemployed, after years of struggling with mental illness. The prize, he later said, “had a tremendous impact on my life, more than on the life of most prize winners.” (He died in a car accident last year, at age 86.)