• by IPS Correspondents (georgetown)
• Thursday, December 01, 1994
• Inter Press Service

GEORGETOWN, Dic 01 (IPS) - Post office officials here are hoarding the last of a precious supply of stamps featuring former U.S. football star O.J. Simpson as philatelists in North America try to wrest the prints from them.

Postmaster general Edward Noble said Thursday the state-run post office has a small set of the nine-stamp collection for contractual obligations with both local and international collectors.

"We have contracts with philatelists who have standing orders with us. We have to meet those commitments," Noble said.

"We still have a few sheets left but we cannot disclose how much because somebody will come and buy out all of them. What the people in the United States are trying to do is to buy out all the stamps and sell them at big mark-ups."

The stamp collection has gained international interest because the former football star is currently on trial for the murder of his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ronald Goldman.

News reports coming out of the United States have highlighted the Guyanese stamp collection which also features seven other current and former sporting greats and a peace dove. The limited collection was put on sale last year as part of a commemorative issue to honour great sportsmen and women of the 20th century.

Sales were progressing modestly until a New York newspaper ran an article on what has been considered a 'find', here in this South American country.

The stamps are the only ones ever made of Simpson.

Noble has dismissed as a "sales gimmick" comments attributed to Scott Tilson, an official of the Maryland-based International Collectors Society, who is reported to have said he did not believe Guyanese officials knew the importance of the collection.

"Only a few thousand sheets were originally issued in 1993 and many of them have already been used for postage," the paper quoted Tilson as saying. "I am not sure they actually knew what they had. In fact they called it the 'Pele' issue, so I just played along, not mentioning I was really after the O.J. stamps," Tilson said.

"These stamps are rare to begin with, but with so much news about O.J. and the trial now, we expect the remaining sheets to disappear quickly."

Noble said only 700 sheets of the commemorative stamps were ever printed.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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