In his message, Bidder promised a shilling to anyone who found one of his bottles and returned the postcard – the Marine Biological Associated duly purchased one from eBay and posted it to Winkler.
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After a careful review of the signs that is historical, Guinness World Records verified the postcard that is cryptic found on the coasts of Amrum Island, Germany is the oldest message in a bottle.
The association said on its website, “MBA staff were thrilled when a letter addressed to G. P. Bidder, containing an original postcard from one of his bottles, arrived at the MBA’s Plymouth laboratory in April 2015”.
The couple managed to extract the card, then dutifully filled it out and mailed it, care of “GP Bidder”, to the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth, Devon in the United Kingdom.
The older bottle was discovered by retired German postal worker Marianne Winkler while on vacation, according to a statement from Discovery News. Out of the total 1,020 bottle tossed into the sea, the Marine Biological Association had a almost 55 percent return rate, after many were pulled ashore by fishing trawlers.
“Her bottle comfortably beat the last record holder, a bottle found in Shetland in 2013 that had been adrift for 99 years and 43 days”, The Guardian says.
Guiness World Records lauded the discovery, saying it was the oldest message in a bottle to have ever been found.
“The message was found at Amrum Island, Germany, on 17 April 2015”.
His messages in bottles helped him prove for the first time that the deep sea current in the North Sea flowed from east to west.
“Where does it come from, who wrote it, and how long has it been travelling on the winds, waves and currents”.
Inside she could see a message reading “break the bottle” but she and her husband Horst tried and failed to get the message out without destroying its container. “We continued cruising, and I completely forgot about it”. Some of the bottles never made it back and are assumed to be lost at sea.
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Guy Baker, the communications officer at the association, said they were determined Winkler would get the proper reward.
