Pitcairn islanders are hoping an historic naval gun believed to be from the famous HMS Bounty will be returned to their island.
The gun is being sold at auction on Saturday in Scotland.
The HMS Bounty was burnt off Pitcairn Island more than 230 years ago after Fletcher Christian and his mutineers sailed to the island where some of their descendants remain.
Remnants of the ship still lie on the bottom of Bounty Bay off Pitcairn.
One of the HMS Bounty guns on display on Pitcairn Island Photo: RNZ.Meralda Warren
One of the mutineers' descendants Meralda Warren said the gun for sale was very similar to two which were brought up from the bay in the 1980s and are now on display on the island.
A third is on Norfolk Island where Pitcairners later settled.
"I am very surprised there's a gun up for auction," she said by phone from Pitcairn.
She said her research showed a fourth gun from the Bounty had blown up when fired by Matthew McCoy in the early 1800s, also blowing part of his arm off. He later died from his injuries, she said.
But she didn't dispute the gun could indeed be from the HMS Bounty.
"We'd love that the money can be raised or the cannon can be returned back to Pitcairn. That is my only hope."
Ms Warren said Pitcairn Islanders could not afford to pay for the gun which was expected to fetch thousands of pounds.
Documentation with the cannon, a letter signed by another mutineer descendant J R McCoy, says it was gifted to the captain of another British ship, the Orealla, which called at Pitcairn in 1898.
According to a local report a manuscript letter dated Pitcairn April 5 1898 is also included with the gun.
"This is to our knowledge the last of the HMS Bounty's armament. This gun was fished up in Bounty Bay, Pitcairn Isle where she was wrecked," it said.
Ms Warren said there wasn't much left of the Bounty on the ocean floor now, just a few pieces of ballast.
Meralda Warren is a seventh generation Pitcairner, descended from several of the Bounty mutineers, including Fletcher Christian Photo: Meralda Warren
"A lot of it has been picked up and scattered all over the world now.
"It really concerns us how many people are benefiting from Pitcairn's history," she said.
"I know it's a British ship but it sank off Pitcairn and it's very hard to swallow that people are using Pitcairn Island and HMS Bounty for personal gain where if a Pitcairn Islander does that there will be a heavy fine and even a jail sentence."
The gun goes under the hammer on Saturday and the managing director of the auctioneers Thomson Roddick, Sybelle Thomson, told the BBC she was "as satisfied as she can be" with the gun's provenance.
The auction house has conducted additional research to compare the gun's dimensions with those still in the South Pacific and to compare the signature on the letter with those on other documents.
