O.J. Simpson is secretly selling autographed memorabilia, we’re told. But he’s still not signing any gloves.
Sources says Simpson is caught in something of a commercial Catch-22: Charging money to sign collectibles is one of the few ways he’s able to make cash, but he doesn’t want his creditors — including Nicole Brown’s family — knowing how much memorabilia he’s scribbling on, or what he’s raking in from it.
So, we’re told, the disgraced 72-year-old former NFL star has started signing memorabilia on the sly. Sources say the Juice doesn’t advertise that’s he’s available to sign items, but instead has his intermediaries reach out to individual collectors to arrange “private signings.” “There’s no mass e-mails or anything like that,” said an insider. “Dealers have to go directly to clients.”
We’re told Simpson — who has started a new life in Las Vegas since his release from prison — will “sign anything, except items related to the [Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman murders]. He doesn’t want that kind of thing out there.” So … the gloves still won’t fit.
Mike Heffner, president of sports-memorabilia auctioneers Lelands (which isn’t involved in the Simpson sales), told us that demand for Simpson memorabilia skyrocketed at the time of the 1994 murders and subsequent trial, but has since waned.
Heffner estimated that a signature today would net somewhere between $20 on a card and up to $400 on a helmet. He also said that autograph sales are often particularly important to marred stars, whose checkered pasts rule them out of traditional career routes for retired athletes, such as broadcasting and endorsement deals.
Despite his comfortable life in Nevada, Simpson owes Brown’s family more than $35 million, awarded to them after Simpson was found to be liable for her death. In 1999, an auction of Simpson memorabilia raised more than $500,000, which went directly to the family.
Simpson’s lawyer didn’t get back to us.
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