"It’s amazing. I just can’t believe what I see.
"It’s been a beautiful journey," a relieved Ms de Beer said this week.
After returning home from work about 24 years ago, Ms de Beer, a Dunedin resident, discovered the Boer War era shooting trophy was gone, and later learned it had been badly damaged.
It had been taken away for repairs, which could not be completed, and the trophy became lost.
She also felt guilty the trophy, which had belonged to her mother, Kathleen de Beer (nee Farquharson), was missing.
However, decades of sadness recently turned to delight when Port Chalmers resident Clare Keogh contacted Ms de Beer, said the trophy had been found, and returned it.
And when Ms de Beer approached Castle St Panelbeaters for help, co-owner Nigel Constable gladly did the restoration job for nothing.
"I’m ecstatic, and I’m so grateful to Nigel," she said.
She now wants to find a good home to safeguard and display the trophy.
The Otago Hussars Hyams Challenge Shooting Cup, established in 1899, had been won by her grandfather, Trooper William McGregor Farquharson, in at least 1902 or 1903.
He was a highly skilled marksman who fought in South Africa during the Boer War (1899-1902), in the second of 10 New Zealand troop contingents.
Some years ago, Ms de Beer phoned Port Chalmers resident Clair Keogh, whose late husband John Keogh had earlier been asked to make repairs, but he had died in 2001.
Ms de Beer asked about the trophy but Mrs Keogh had not seen it.
However, when her son Nathan recently found the damaged trophy while tidying his father’s workshop, she knew exactly what it was.
