The jewellery in its hiding place. Photos by Gerard O'Brien
and Mike Hamblyn.
Over the years, secondhand book-seller Mike Hamblyn has
found all sorts of unusual items in book purchases - banknotes,
letters, photographs, negatives and even a piece of bacon rind
doubling as a bookmark.
But on Wednesday he encountered a first - a stash of
jewellery hidden in a hollowed-out book.
It was pure chance he found the jewellery, which included a
cameo brooch, a ring and an earring, he said yesterday.
Dunedin book-seller Mike Hamblyn, who discovered jewellery
hidden in a hollowed-out book.
He had put the book, entitled The World's Best Books into
his reject box but decided to leaf through it to see what
constituted a "good book" when the volume was published about
40 years ago.
"When I opened it, the jewellery fell out. There was one
earring in there and I thought there must be a matching pair,
so I hunted around and found the other one in the bottom of
the box," he said.
Mr Hamblyn returned the jewellery and book to the Dunedin
family which had sold him six cartons of books, receiving
grateful thanks and a bottle of wine.
"They said had been looking for the jewellery for years. They
knew it existed but didn't know where it had gone."
The family did not want to be identified or interviewed.
Mr Hamblyn, a former librarian who with his wife, Cheryl, has
run the Read On! bookshop in the Gardens Shopping Mall for
almost seven years, said he checked the larger books in the
other cartons from the family but found no more surprises.
Banknotes, photographs and strips of negatives were common
finds, he said.
On one occasion he was able to return to relatives letters,
photographs and diaries which he found in a box of books sold
to him after their owner's death.
"It was heartbreaking to think that history was almost lost
to the family."
Mr Hamblyn said he once almost sold some of his own money
with a book.
He had hidden the shop's float in its pages but forgot to
retrieve the notes.
It was discovered some time later by his wife while she was
flicking through the book just before selling it to a
customer.
He said had learned his lesson and now kept the float in a
safe rather than in a book.
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