Dump trip leads to historic find

Bernie Pershouse believes the item he found is the only one in existence.

HISTORICAL ARTEFACT: Bernie Pershouse said all of the articles in the antique edition of The Observer were good to read, including one about Bill Robertson.

BERNIE Pershouse claims to have the only 125-year edition of The Observer in existence after finding a stack of them at Yarwun dump in the 90s.

Mr Pershouse, 65, said he believed an error with the date of the paper led to all the historic editions having to be discarded.

“I don’t know how they did this with a whole office full of staff but anyway they printed the 125-year edition,” he said.

“Now this is the mystery behind it, because I found all the bundles containing the 125-year editions on the Yarwun rubbish tip out there all still strapped up.

“Now apparently, they printed it in the wrong year and they were 12 months out.

“Makes you think, out of a whole office full of people, with many people being involved because it’s an anniversary edition, how did they not realise they were 12 months out?”

Mr Pershouse claims they only made 7000 copies of the historic edition, which went to print in the early 90s.

Bernie Pershouse said he came across a stack of the antique Observer editions at the Yarwun Transfer Station in 1993 and only took one edition from a large stack.

“I didn’t realise what they were so I just cut one bundle open, looked at it and thought ‘oh well I will grab one’,” he said.

“I should have grabbed the whole bloody lot really, because the general manager said I have got the only one in existence they didn’t even keep one for themselves due to the mistake.”

Mr Pershouse said his sons will more than likely inherit the historic edition as he wants to keep it in the family.

“I have got a lot of old Observers, date ones and special editions and that type of thing and all of the ones which have the Boyne-Tannum hook-up in them as well,” he said.

Mr Pershouse said he couldn’t single out a single article in the edition as his favourite.

“But there is an article done on Bill Robertson here and how he started out,” he said.

“It also has all of the staff who were working at The Observer at the time, they’ve got a big centre spread.”

“Pretty well everything is interesting in there.”