Musician Mike McCall said these were "irreplaceable" artefacts that brought back powerfully nostalgic memories of Wagga's golden age of Jazz music.

Many of the pieces were composed by Kapooka army bandmasters, who would perform gigs with Mr McCall at crowded venues around town.

"A lot of the army guys we've played with over the years were excellent musicians," Mr McCall said.

"Things were different. There were real musos around then."

One such musician is Peter Brown, who had been collecting sheet music from all the band members he had played with since the sixties.

The collection of sheet music was left in his car when it was broken to and ransacked by thieves on Morgan Street.

Mr Brown said he was clinging onto the hope that the thieves might return the sheet music, since they were old school dot jazz charts that could not be read by modern musicians.

Mr Brown said the charts were essentially worthless in terms of money, but that they held enormous sentimental value for him and his band mates.

"Hopefully they might decide to throw it back over the fence," Mr Brown said.

"We're holding out for the very, very slim chance it might turn up again."

Some of the pieces were photocopied, but others were the only copies on record.

Even if the sheet music is lost forever, the spirit of the sixties lives on in Mr McCall's shed, where members of Mike McCall's Mainstreamers meet every week for a jam session.

Mr Brown is the band's saxophonist and clarinettist, and he said he always looks forward to meeting up with his friends and resurrecting the sound of the sixties.