A coat hanger has been found and returned to a Coromandel Peninsula motel after 47 years.
The item was left at the reception of the Seaspray Motel, in Waiomu Bay, with a letter.
"Returning this coat hanger to you after it's been in our wardrobe in Auckland and New Plymouth for the past 47 years after we stayed at the Seaspray Motel all those years ago," it read.
"They were just delightful,” Katherine Tizard, who has kept the motel spick and span for 18 years, told Seven Sharp.
The last time the hanger had hung in a Seaspray wardrobe was back in 1974, in the room booked by the Wharram family.
“We just had a wonderful time,” light-fingered guest Julie Wharram said. “We've often said probably the best holiday that we've had, and we've a lot of tripping around.”
Julie and Dave Wharram, and their then-two-year-old son Matthew, had gone for a getaway to take in the sea air when the hanger found its way into their suitcase.
Tizard said the previous owners didn't mention any missing coat hangers, but "they probably should've".
The coat hanger went on a decades-long adventure.
“Baby clothes, then Mathew's clothes when he went to school, school uniform, and then as he grew up, it was Billy Idol t-shirts and AC/DC and Pearl Jam and then from there, I used it,” Wharram said.
The coat hanger has seen Matthew grow up from a wee tot into a fully-grown adult.
"He had it in the wardrobe until he left home when he was probably 17, 18."
Wharram was having "a bit of a clean out" around six weeks ago when she had an epiphany.
“I thought, 'Right, time to take this back to Seaspray, so that's what we did."
Wharram said she'll miss the old relic.
"I used to look at it quite often and I'd think, Seaspray Motel - that was a great holiday."
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