BERMUDA'S rich and remarkable past is a source of endless fascination for Anthony Pettit and so his business is something of a self-indulgence.

As a dealer in maps, books and prints of old Bermuda, Mr. Pettit's home is something of a historical treasure trove.

Maps printed in centuries gone by, some so ancient that their words are written in Latin, adorn the walls of his home and more are piled up in a back room along with hundreds of books, prints and paintings.

Mr. Pettit's horde is the result of decades of searching and collecting, and his hobby became a business around 14 years ago.

"I have a fascination with the history of Bermuda," said the 61-year-old. "All the little bits you find tell you something more about it.

"It's interesting to know what that place looked like before they renovated it, or to know where a family came from. Only the other day I met someone who could trace his family right back to the 17th century and I think that's absolutely fascinating."

Mr. Pettit came to Bermuda in 1965 to teach Latin for two stints at Saltus with a spell at Berkeley in between. He long since retired from teaching, but his knowledge of classical language allows him to understand the text on the most ancient of his maps.

He said he came across most of his items by word of mouth and occasionally via the Internet. Mr. Pettit believed that many historical treasures were tucked away in Bermuda homes, but he felt that in most cases the owners were well aware of the value of their items.

"I think there are treasures around on the island," said Mr. Pettit. "When there was an antiques roadshow held by the St. George's Historical Society earlier in the year, I was surprised by the small number of people bringing in Bermuda material. That was not necessarily because there is not much material about, but probably because people know what they have and did not need to have it valued."

Occasionally, Mr. Pettit is asked to evaluate an apparently valuable item.

"One time someone showed me a map they thought was really valuable," said Mr. Pettit. "I had to tell them that it was a copy. Another time it worked the other way. Someone showed me something that was much more valuable than they had thought."

Mr. Pettit stores his treasures in a controlled environment conducive to preservation. A dehumidifier keeps the moisture level low, while sunlight is also shut out.

"If people do have old maps and books they should remember that Bermuda has a terrible climate for paper and you have to take precautions to preserve it," said Mr. Pettit. "The high humidity, the salt in the air and the sun are all bad, and there are also cockroaches and silverfish."

COLLECTING items and then selling them off, sometimes to overseas collectors, was not, Mr. Pettit said, eroding the island's heritage. "Many of the items I find, I find overseas," he said.

"I prefer to find pieces from away and bring them in. There is a wide range of people who buy from me. People collect for different reasons. Some are regulars, many are from Bermuda, some are companies who like to put old maps on their walls.

"There are some Americans who collect as well, but they usually have a strong connection with the island. Mostly they have said it is their intention to leave what they have to the island, or to an institution on the island.

"I like finding this stuff and it's helpful to have people on the lookout for it and I believe that it can only enrich the island."

Handling so many different treasures had sharpened his perspective on the island history. "There's a story behind every piece," he said.

For example, his oldest map, dating from 1561, the Tierra Nueva (New World), taken from Ruscelli's Geographica of Ptolemy, shows 'La Bremuda' as an island off the coast of Florida. Mr. Pettit said this so-called 'floating Bermuda' had been purposely misplaced on the map to deceive the enemy - fleets of Spanish treasure galleons which would make Bermuda their landfall before turning east on their eastward voyage to Europe.

Then there is a map of Bermuda by Speed, dating back to 1618, but so accurate it is only three feet out. Based on a survey by Richard Norwood, the island is shown divided into dozens of sections, each of which were 25-acre lots belonging to the island's shareholders.

In Sandys there is an area of roughly 300 acres not allotted to any shareholder, which became known as the Overplus, from which the name Overplus Lane was derived.

The then-Governor Daniel Tucker eventually won the right to claim that land for himself and to build a home there.

The map would have been printed in black and white by means of a copper plate, with watercolours added later.

SOME of Mr. Pettit's most interesting prints include 19th-century lithographs showing Dockyard and the old Government House. And there are more prints of sketches made by a military officer, stationed at Dockyard in the mid-1800s, who was asked to produce a series of landscapes to prove his military skills. The landscapes show hills and a road, but are almost featureless besides.

"It did not really look that way," said Mr. Pettit. "He did it that way because he was not interested in cedar trees, but was more concerned with contours."

Mr. Pettit's Aladdin's Cave of artefacts includes numerous books, many of them rare.

"Most of these books had small print runs, often about 500 or so, and so only a small number are still around," he said.