Bond Trader's Auction Aims to Lick Poverty

Wall Street bond manager Bill Gross of Laguna Beach will offer the Scandinavia portion of his extensive, international stamp collection next month in a public auction that is conservatively estimated to fetch over $1 million.

All proceeds from the collection's sale will be donated by Sue and Bill Gross to Columbia University's Millennium Villages project, which offers a model for helping rural African villages escape poverty, according to Charles Shreve, president of Spink Shreves Galleries of New York, the auction house that will conduct the sale in New York on May 16.

Last June, Gross, founder and chief investment officerof Newport Beach-based PIMCO

Pacific Investment Management Company), put up another portion of his world-renowned stamp collection. He and his wife, Sue, donated the entire $9.1 million auction proceeds to Doctors Without Borders/ Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the international medical humanitarian organization that delivers emergency health care aid to people affected by armed conflicts,epidemics and natural or made-made disasters in more than 70 countries.

What began as a hobby for Gross now includes 110 rare and several one-of-a-kind 19th and early 20th century Scandinavian stamps.

The stamps will be displayed for potential bidders at the Spink Galleries in London, England, May 5 - 7, and in New York May 9 - 12 and May 15.