In 2014, we posted about a German fisherman who found a 101 year old message in a bottle. It was then the oldest message ever found in a bottle. Now, a bottle containing a message that was tossed overboard between 1904 and 1906, making it at least 109 years old, may take the title. The newest-oldest bottle washed up on the beach on the German island of Amrum, and was found by a Marianne Winkler, a retired postal worker on vacation with her husband Horst, in April of this year.

The bottle was part of a “fishery investigation” led by George Parker Bidder, a researcher who would later become the president of the Marine Biological Association of the U.K.. Bidder released 1,000 bottles, each containing a postcard promising a “one shilling reward” to anyone who returned it to the association. Most of the bottles that were found were caught in fishing trawlers’ nets and returned to the association many decades ago. An antique shilling was sent to the Winklers, who returned the postcard. Thanks to Alaric Bond for passing along the story.