What’s Slower Than Snail Mail?

While perusing the UK Guardian last month we came across a fascinating item about a German fisherman who pulled a brown beer bottle out of the Baltic Sea near Kiel, only to discover that it had a message in it scrawled on a very old post card. It was not a call for help, as is often depicted in movies. The note simply requested the finder return it to the writer’s home address in Berlin.

Once in the hands of researchers at Hamburg’s International Maritime Museum, the bottle’s origin was eventually traced. Turns out it was chucked into the Baltic 101 years ago — a record, for those who keep track of such things, especially since the bottle was completely intact.

Through handwriting analysis, accessing old residency records, and other means, researchers determined that the note was penned by Richard Platz, a baker’s son, then 20,  who threw the bottle in the Baltic while on a hike with a nature appreciation group in 1913. Amazing.

A Berlin-based genealogical researcher determined that Platz had died in 1946, but he was able to track down his  62-year-old granddaughter Angela Erdmann, who lives in Berlin. Although she never knew her grandfather, she was understandably shocked. "It was almost unbelievable," she said.

We’ve found all sorts of odd stuff floating in the sea, but never a bottle with a note in it. How about you? If so, email your story to us here.