Hawke's Bay A&P Show's 92-year-old trophy comes home

A&P Society general manager Sally Jackson (left) and senior constable Pauline MacDonald with an old trophy recovered from the Trade Me auction site. Photo Paul Taylor

A piece of silverware has been returned to the Hawke's Bay A&P Society after an absence of 90 years, thanks to a chance find on Trade Me.

The sterling silver trophy, standing about 10cm high, was presented by a Robert Bell and for the owner of the southdown sheep with most points "natural condition" and was awarded in 1926, 1927, and 1928 to N.G. Rayner.

Police yesterday handed the trophy to society general manager Sally Jackson, who said she would investigate whether it could again be presented in line with the donor's original intentions.

She was unaware whether the trophy could have been one presented as a miniature for a trophy retained by the society, or one awarded in perpetuity, as is the case with some trophies where they have been won by the same person or team a specific number of times.

In 1970 Brazil's third football World Cup win entitled the nation's team to become permanent holders of its Jules Rimet Trophy, although it was stolen in 1983 and disappeared.

Jackson said it doesn't appear as if the Bell cup had been stolen. When it was discovered being offered for sale online, a viewer alerted the Wairarapa A&P Society, a name on another of several trophies being offered for sale.

Police contacted the vendor, satisfied the trophies were being offered sold in a simple disposal exercise, suggested they shouldn't really be sold and should be handed back to the original owners.

Jackson now wonders if other long-since forgotten trophies will emerge, whether from mantelpieces, boxes under the bed or in the garage, or otherwise unclaimed on the shelves of jewellers or engravers.