Overview
- A copy of Antiquities of Athens (1858) was found hidden inside a tea chest bricked into a fireplace in a Kiama home and handed to Kiama Library after recent renovations.
- The book bears the library ownership stamp and the original No. 506 mark from the collection the library opened in the 1870s.
- Printed 1870s by-laws inside the volume show a three pence per week overdue fine, which staff used to estimate a theoretical inflation-adjusted total of about AU$28,000 but the library will not seek payment.
- Kiama Library cannot identify the original borrower because the lending journal from the 1870s is lost, though the finder, Ross Simmons, believes it may have belonged to his great-great-grandfather.
- Staff say the book is water-damaged but largely intact and that removing it from circulation and storing it in archival boxes will preserve a rare local artefact and illuminate Victorian-era library rules.