A 101-year-old message in a bottle, possibly the world’s oldest, has been presented to the sender’s granddaughter.
Last month fishermen recovered a floating beer bottle from the water in the Baltic Sea, which contained a postcard from a Richard Platz, dated 17 May 1913. On the postcard, Platz politely asked for the message to be forwarded to his address in Berlin, according to The Local.
Researchers from the International Maritime Museum in Hamburg were tasked with finding any of Platz’s living relatives, and were eventually able to trace Angela Erdmann, 62, Platz’s granddaughter who also lives in Berlin.
Erdmann never knew her grandfather who died aged 54 in 1946, but after being informed of the message she visited the museum last week to hold the bottle in her hands.
Much of the message is ineligible due to the damp conditions interacting with the ink, but after the bottle is removed from display at the museum on 1 May, researchers will attempt to decipher the message.
