A Postal Worker Found a 108-Year-old Message in a Bottle

On November 30, 1906, a sailor named George Parker Bidder dropped a bottle with a note in it into the sea. The bottle sank to the bottom of the sea and floated in the sea for 108 years, 4 months, and 18 days.

It was finally found when Marianne Winkler, a retired postal worker, found it on the shore of Amrum Island in 2015. She had no idea that it was the oldest message in a bottle ever recorded. It gave her a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.

When Winkler found the bottle, she saw that there was a paper telling her to break it open. She didn't want to break it open at first because she could tell that it was old. When she finally got the bottle open, it turned out to be a postcard addressed to G.P. Bidder, the man who dropped the bottle, at the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth, England. The not promised a one-shilling reward.

Winkler filled the note out and sent it to the Marine Biological Association, which luckily still exists. According to a press release, the association was very surprised and thrilled to get the postcard. According to Corey Fedde from the Christian Science Monitor, the employees researched how much a shilling would be worth today.

Apparently, this bottle that was found was not the only one that Bidder had sent to sea. Between the years of 1904 and 1906, he put notes inside of bottles and put them in the ocean to chart the currents.