A decade may have passed by since Napier Boy's High School archivist and historian Phillip Rankin discovered a slightly unusual book had been stolen from a display case at the school, but he is ever hopeful it may just one day turn up again.
"It would be nice to get it back - I thought it might have turned up at a reunion by now," he said, adding though that if someone did front with it they would likely be highly suspected of being a thief.
The missing item, a reddish-brown old hard-covered exercise book, was a record of corporal punishment carried out at the school up until about 1972.
It listed the names of boys who received the cane as punishment, and as well as featuring the name of the boy, and the behaviour which brought about the caning, it also recorded the name of the teacher who carried it out.
There was also supposed to be a witness (another master) to the caning but that was not always carried out, Mr Rankin said.