The Snowy Scheme Museum at Adaminaby is holding an artefact that may be either just a piece of worthless, rusting junk or that may instead turn out to be a jewel of great historical importance, deserving of expensive and painstaking restoration.
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It is an old Land Rover vehicle that at the moment looks to museum committee president Tim Corkill ''dilapidated and as if it's been used as a chook shed''.
But what might transform what we think of it and what becomes of it would be confirmation of the strong suspicion that this may be what Corkill calls a ''Royal Land Rover''.
It may be one in which Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip once rode. They were driven to the underground power stations Tumut 1 and Tumut 2 during their visit to the Snowy Mountains in 1963 and this may just be the vehicle in which their regal bottoms were plonked for that excursion.
What encourages this suspicion, Corkill explains, is that in spite of the ways in which the Land Rover has been ''used and abused'', it does still contain some intriguing traces of some swish-looking upholstery he thinks is ''significantly different from a stock, standard Land Rover''.
Certainly the dilapidated, rusting Land Rover does have a Snowy Mountains Scheme connection because it is known that it was bought many years ago at one of the many ''Snowy auctions'' of redundant Snowy Scheme equipment.
It was found, in recent times and in its present state, at Bemboka. The museum is very keen to restore it, Corkill said yesterday, but simply can't justify the expense of doing it unless it can be sure it really is a ''Royal Land Rover''.
Can anyone help? The museum is asking if anyone, anywhere has anything (of course especially photographs taken of the royals at the 1963 occasion) that will help confirm whether this enigmatic hulk has royal blood. Corkill's phone number is 0401 987 628 and the museum's email address is publicity@snowyschememuseum.com.au
Meanwhile, just this week, and so as to be able to store the venerable and potentially priceless Land Rover out of the elements, it has been put on a car float and taken into the tender care of the Sapphire Coast Historical Vehicle Club at Pambula.
