No self-help shopping in this store

There was a time – and not really so long ago – when customers stood at the grocery store counter and asked the owner for items displayed on the shelves behind.

Back in the 1950s and 1960s there were no smart self-service supermarkets with long aisles, filled with a confusing array of products and brands.


The Opotiki Museum has been built around the facade of the former Road Services Bus Depot.

As it was
It was said of Shalfoon and Francis, ‘you name it, they have it’, and museum manager Dot Wilson says much of the stock is still there – right down to heel and toe caps for boots, blocks of ‘blue’ for washing water, and a good deal more.

“George didn’t throw anything out, and he knew where everything was.”

Finding out not just where everything is, but in some cases what it is has been an ongoing challenge for Dot and the team of museum volunteers ever since they took over the stores.

As well as selling groceries and hardware, George also sold dynamite – there’s an old brick explosive store out the back.

Today part of what was a large department store, with a long frontage on the town’s Church Street, is now an opportunity shop where volunteers sell a range of donated goods to help cover the operating cost of both the store and museum.

However, the grocery and hardware store remain just as they were when George was the owner, right down to the account books he kept. Maurice Andrews, one of the museum’s many volunteers, thumbs through the pages of one book. “Look a dozen eggs cost 85 cents in 1975, bread was 17 cents a loaf, and two light bulbs cost 46 cents.”

Up the road on the ground floor of the museum George’s delivery truck has undergone restoration and is ‘as good as new’.

It’s part of an extensive display of mainly farming and agricultural machinery and equipment restored, identified, and arranged by volunteers. Also profiled are saddlery, printing, candle-making, shearing, engineering, the dairy industry, and barber’s shop, all on the ground floor.



Brown bear
All of that is overlooked by a huge brown bear, moose, and deer heads on loan to the museum from local veteran hunter and shearer Piki Amoamo. Piki has hunted extensively in New Zealand, Australia, and Alaska and it was while making a documentary in Alaska in the 1980s that he shot the bear and moose. In all, 14 exotic animals and three fish caught or shot by Piki are on display.

The museum itself is an impressive new three storied building, built around the facade of the former Road Services Bus Depot. It is a fully independent museum, but does receive some funding from the Opotiki District Council.

It’s also received substantial grants from the Lottery Grants Board, Eastern Bay Energy Trust, The Southern Trust, and Scottwood Trust.

The late Elvira Sundell made the museum possible. Born in South Africa in 1905 to Finnish parents, Edward and Hilda, Elvira arrived with her family in New Zealand just after the outbreak of World War I.


A huge brown bear shot by local veteran hunter and shearer Piki Amoamo is on display in the Opotiki Museum.

Legacy left
They farmed in the Takaputahi Valley near Opotiki. Elvira never married and for many years managed the family farm after her brother and father died. In the 1970s, she bought a beach house at Waiotahi, and then in her 70s began travelling the world.

When she died aged 98 Elvira left a bequest to the Opotiki Museum, which was used to construct the modern building.

It’s an impressive building designed to best tell the district’s diverse history from the time of its first Polynesian settlers to today.

Early pioneer photographs and an exhibition focused on the importance of shipping in early Opotiki occupy the mezzanine floor. Twelve heritage rooms trace history from the arrival of European pioneers to the 1930s on the Elvira Sundell third floor, along with the Whakatohea Research and Archives Taonga in an exhibition called ‘Treasures of the past’.

The Opotiki Museum is well worth a visit. It’s open Monday to Friday 10am-4pm and Saturday from 10am-2pm.


George Shalfoon of Opotiki with his grocery delivery truck.


George Shalfoon’s grocery delivery truck, now fully restored and on display in the Opotiki Museum, is enjoyed by volunteers Maurice Andrews and Ian Edwards.


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