KINGSTON, Jamaica — Down Sound Entertainment’s  Chief Executive Officer Josef Bogdanovich has reportedly closed a deal with Bob Marley expert Roger Steffens to bring a veritable trove of Bob Marley memorabilia and artefacts to Jamaica.

Steffens’ collection, which is widely acknowledged to include the largest and most comprehensive collection of Marley artefacts in the world, includes a T-shirt from Marley’s famed 1978 “One Love” concert in Jamaica.

“It is a massive responsibility,” Bogdanovich told Observer Online.

“I am excited because it is a huge responsibility to the culture of Jamaica. This is bigger than money.”

Josef Bogdanovich

Steffens collected his enormous archive for more than half a century, housing the memorabilia in his six-bedroom Los Angeles house.

Bogdanovich refused to disclose the final sum of the sale, but hinted that the media was slow on the draw as he had acquired the collection “a long time ago”. The archive has been valued at as much as US$3 million in the past, according to Variety.

“Of all the people who have tried to buy this collection for the past 37 years, he is the most qualified to do all the things necessary to preserve and promote it, and to return this history to Jamaica without any political control,” Steffens told Variety.

In a previous article, The Observer suggested that a US$ 1 million price tag was the asking price during the previous round of negotiations to acquire Steffens’ world-famous collection.

READ: Joe snags Steffens’ archive

Bogdanovich did not disclose the price the parties settled on.

“It’s not about bidding or outbidding anyone. The question is: what are you going to do with this tremendous archive from a national collection perspective?” Bogdanovich said.

Bogdanovich will now assemble a team of curators and other creative individuals to ensure that the trove is displayed in the proper manner and that items, such as a poster for Marley’s July 21, 1978 at Berkeley’s Greek Theater autographed by Marley and the Wailers, are carefully preserved.

To ensure this, Bogdanovich plans to build it in Montego Bay and has hired Robert Santelli of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Grammy Museum as a creative advisor, Variety said.

Steffens’ archive includes incredible memorabilia such as a used copy of the Wailers’ first album, “Catch a Fire”, reggae posters, album covers, buttons, live cassettes and interviews.

The collection boasts rare white-label Trojan releases, magazine articles, folk art, paintings and Haile Selassie memorabilia, including an autographed, postmarked envelope commemorating his famed October 4, 1963, speech to the United Nations, the words of which were set to music by Marley in “War.”

— Claude Mills