"I tried to pull it out of the ground and noticed it was more than just a metal bar. It was a gun."
But it wasn't just any old gun.
It is believed to be a Tranter 450 calibre 6-shot double action centre-fire army revolver, one of only two known examples of the gun left in the world.
Mrs Carmichael said she, her husband and their two children moved to the Waikouaiti Palmerston Rd property two years ago from Stirling, Scotland, and had since been trying to do up the property.
The barrel of the gun was unearthed last year, but because of the family's busy lifestyle, it remained "a metal bar sticking out of a pile of dirt" for about four months, Mrs Carmichael said.
"With two dogs, three ponies, two kids and Granny living with us, developing the property is taking time."
So the gun was not officially discovered until December last year, when Mrs Carmichael pulled it from the dirt.
Firearm historian Grant Sheriff, of Dunedin, said the gun was manufactured in England in 1880 or 1881.
Originally, it was nickel-plated with a walnut wood butt stock.
"Only one other example of this model with lanyard ring and six-inch barrel has been positively recorded," he said.
The Waikouaiti revolver is now on display in the Waikouaiti Museum.
Waikouaiti Museum Society committee member Bill Lang said the gun's history of owners and purpose was unknown.
However, he believed it may have been buried in the Carmichaels' garden in 1922 as a result of a change in government legislation.
"Pistols were quite common in New Zealand households.
"Most families had guns. But, in 1922, the government changed legislation and the public weren't allowed to own pistols any more.
"So people either handed them in to the police or buried them in their back yards."
The revolver will be featured in the museum as part of tomorrow's Taieri Rotary Club's Historic Homes of the Coastline fundraising open day.
