They cost the equivalent of $8 a year and even though he has been offered almost 40 times that much, Mr. Walter Stevens has no intention of selling.

He was given a stack of old newspapers by his 72-year-old uncle, Ivan Stevens, before he died and they date back as far as 1840 and were published by The Royal Gazette and the Bermuda Mirror.

Mr. Stevens said: "The papers were given to me about six or seven years ago. They were wrapped in some old papers from the 1950s and I couldn't tell you where he got them from.

"I was cleaning out some stuff in my garage and I started to go through the old 1950s newspapers and I bumped into these ones wrapped in the middle.

"I thought I had something special with the 1950s newspapers but when I saw there were papers from the 1800s I was like 'wow', this is older than anything I could ever relate to."

Mr. Stevens placed an advertisment to see if people would be interested in the newspapers, although he has no interest in selling them.

He told The Royal Gazette he had received offers to buy the papers from England and Canada for prices as low as $50 and as high as $300 per paper.

Many of the stories that were printed in the newspapers in the 1800s were collected from overseas.

One of the papers, which dates back to 1840, had an article titled 'A Visit to a Lunatic Asylum'. The story was from the Port of Spain (Trinidad) Gazette of January 1 and was about an newly renovated mental hospital.

According to the story, prior to this new facility, patients were locked up like prisoners and treated like animals, but the new facility allowed the patients to walk freely about the building and be 'trained' to be more civilised.

An excerpt from the story read: "Nor could greater justice be anywhere done to the best of good things, or more enjoyment be displayed than by this company of lunatics.

"In fact, any one coming to see them all sitting quietly at table, or obligingly waiting one upon the other, would have found it difficult to credit the fact that he was in the company of mad people."

There was an advertisement in one of the newspapers, which had Cedar Hill, Warwick for sale. The price was not given in the ad but the 'public was assured it would be sold at a competitive price'.

The price of a newspaper was 24 shillings a year, the equivalent of about $8 (US) in today's money.

Some things, however, have not changed in almost 200 years. There was an ad for 'Lea and Perrin's Worcestershire Sauce' in which the bottle looks very much like the bottle today.

Currently, Mr. Stevens is researching the best methods to preserve and display the papers as they are among his prized possessions.

"I love to collect antiques, I have a cedar artifact from the 1899 -1902 Boer War in South Africa, which I am donating to the Bermuda Historic Society," he said.