NEW YORK – The United Nations is facing accusations that it illegally sold off its historic stamp collection for rock-bottom prices.

The United Nations’ own investigating arm, the Office of Internal Oversight Services, is close to finishing a report into the sale of more than a ton of stamps and stamp-making material belonging to the U.N. Postal Administration in Geneva in 2003.

After the collection went for about $3 million, it is thought to have been worth maybe up to four times as much when broken up and resold.

The exact proceeds from the further sales of the stamps are unknown but stamp-collecting experts were quoted on the Web site of Stamp Magazine as saying that the archive had “fabulous profit potential – perhaps three or four times what was paid for it, if it is broken up.”

Under U.N. rules, the sale of the stamps was barred without the express permission of the chief of the U.N. archives and records management section. No sign of any such permission has been discovered in the U.N. archives.

The report has yet to be submitted to Secretary-General Annan and the U.N. General Assembly.

The United Nations has its own small post office in the bowels of its Manhattan headquarters, where its stamps, postcards, and postmarks prove popular among tourists. It has issued more than 1,000 stamps over the past 55 years.

Among the items in the 2003 sale were original artworks for U.N. stamps, unique so-called die proofs to test the faithfulness of design reproduction, printing proofs and hundreds of thousands of other stamps. Also on sale were artists’ drawings for the earliest U.N. stamps in 1951 and rarities celebrating peacekeeping operations and national member states.

The assistant secretary-general of the Office of Central Support Services, which includes the U.N. Postal Authority, AndrewToh, has been placed on administrative leave with pay. He claims the sale was needed to bring in additional income to the ailing post office.