A pistol owned by one of Australia's most famous explorers and lost for 150 years has returned home to a small town in north-east Victoria.

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The revolver belonging to Robert O'Hara Burke, famous for leading the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition, was bought at an auction in Ireland last year by a tiny museum in Beechworth.

The community raised $18,000 to buy the pistol, which was given to Burke by the Beechworth police in 1858.

Six months after it was purchased local police escorted it up the Hume highway from Melbourne airport in a symbolic gesture.

The Burke Museum's collection manager, Linda Peacock, says they were extremely excited to finally get the pistol.

"It's a very iconic piece of Australian history and the fact that it's connected to Beechworth makes it that much more valuable to us," she said.

"Given a water bottle from the expedition sold about six years ago for over $200,000 we think we've really scored a coup."

About 50 people gathered at the Burke Museum to witness its arrival on Thursday night.

Most had donated money to buy the Tranter revolver.

Local hotel owner Ross Lucas says he jumped at the chance to be involved in bringing it back to the town.

"The pistol really is an integral part of Beechworth's history and Beechworth's future is really based on its history," he said.

"We need to get things back so people still want to visit."

Burke took the pistol with him on his journey across the country with William John Wills more than 150 years ago.

Ms Peacock says they had no idea where it had ended up until last October when she got a tip off that it was to be sold at an auction in Ireland.

"It was in a large catalogue and it was not being marketed as a major item and its significance had obviously not been recognised," she said.

"So that was Thursday night and the auction was Sunday night so we had the next day to verify its authenticity to the best of our ability not being able to see it."

Ms Peacock recruited historian, Bill Wilson, to look into it.

Dr Wilson says he was only given two hours to verify the gun's history.

"Very rushed, I was really riding a wing and a prayer because professionally you've got to be sure of your facts and I wasn't 100 per cent certain," he said.

He told Ms Peacock to bid but be wary that it might not be genuine.

Ms Peacock spent the weekend asking for pledges from the community and ended up with $100,000 in the kitty.

They ended up with the winning bid for just $18,000.

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