Going Postal on New Scandal at the UN

Did you know that the United Nations mints its own stamps and maintained a collection of its own as part of the historical record? I did. I grew up collecting stamps, particularly US stamps. It's a great way to learn about history, and I would occasionally run into UN stamps. Well, the entire collection was sold at auction to a single bidder and investigators want to know who authorized the sale and how it was sold without anyone raising questions:

Auditors from the U.N.’s investigative arm, the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), are currently putting the last touches on an investigative report that has taken months to complete, and that aims to determine exactly what happened — and why — to the U.N.’s rare and much-admired collection of materials that belong to the United Nations Postal Administration.

The audit report has not yet been “finalized,” meaning it is soon to be submitted to senior U.N. managers for comment before being handed on to Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and the U.N. General Assembly.

One thing that investigators know for certain about the archive: In a discreet but historic auction carried out in a quiet suburb of Geneva, Switzerland, all of it — more than a metric ton of prized material, dating from as early as 1951 — was sold off to a single bidder on May 12, 2003. The collection included original artwork for U.N. stamps, unique so-called die proofs to test the faithfulness of design reproduction, printing proofs and other rarities, along with hundreds of thousands of other stamps, reflecting many of the most colorful aspects of U.N. history.

That's a huge bit of history there that has passed into the hands of a private collector. How did this happen, and who approved of such a sale. This goes to oversight and accountability at the UN's highest levels, which should have been questioned ever since the oil for food scandal (UNSCAM) became known.

It would be akin to the federal government opening up the US Mint's stamp collection and selling it to the highest bidder in a sale. That sale would herald the breakup of the collection and it was anticipated that individual pieces of the collection could fetch even higher prices on the market.

Of course, the UN can't find any record of who approved the sale, and I have to wonder whether someone is covering up for a kickback on the sale. Given the way the UN operates, that can't be easily dismissed.