The stage for this bizarre turn of events is Canberra bookshop Beyond Q where owner Simon Maddox found himself in trouble with the law for stocking such scurrilous pamphlets as the 1937 classic Small Arms Training Volume 1.

A pile of similar handbooks was whisked away by military police in full uniform in 2011 before being returned on Monday.

When the pamphlets were confiscated, the story went worldwide after being reported by The Canberra Times.

Now Mr Maddox is just glad the farce is over and the books are back on his shelves.

But here's the thing - during the two years the military police were reading and declassifying the pamphlets, similar tomes were available at the nearby Australian War Memorial.

Mr Maddox says the military police were polite on both occasions.

''It wasn't a storming of the bookshop,'' he said. ''I was partially stunned and thought it was pretty humorous.

''I wondered why things from 1937 would affect the security of Australia now.''

He also wondered why the declassifying process was so long-winded.

''I question why it took so long - even reading slowly you'd imagine you could get through it quicker than that,'' he said.

Mr Maddox had to contain his mirth as he related that the war memorial sold some of the confiscated titles.

''Certainly a lot of our clients have purchased them directly from the war memorial,'' he said.

In January this year the shop received a donation of another 85 similar - possibly seditious - pamphlets.

''The Canberra Times reported this and within two or three days they were all sold - I think the the general public was trying to protect us from the military police,'' Mr Maddox said.

''We did send an email then to the military police suggesting if they'd like to give a time and a date when they'd like to arrive we could have a photographer waiting.''

With the saga at an end, presumably, what did the military police have to say?

''The guy was very polite,'' Mr Maddox said. ''He said the pams were taken because they were concerned they were restricted documents and that there was information in those documents that may have been … stuff that they didn't want to get to certain people,'' he said.

''They did say there was no concern with those pamphlets now.''

Customers to Beyond Q in the Canberra suburb of Curtin can now read and buy a 1966 Adjutant's Pocketbook, a 1969 Aide-Memoire for Regimental Officers and Non-Commissioned Officers, the 1942 version of The Detecting and Reporting of Unexploded Bombs, Shells and Parachute Mines, the 1979 edition of Manual of Land Warfare Part 3, and the 1966 edition of the Soldier's Handbook.