Photograph: Kym Illman.com

There is a new newest oldest message in a bottle. In 2014, we posted about a German fisherman who found a 101-year-old message in a bottle, making it the oldest message ever found in a bottle at that time. Then in 2015, we posted about a bottle which washed up on the German island of Amrum which was at least 109 years old, which then became the newest oldest message in a bottle. Now, a message in a bottle has been found by a couple on a beach in Western Australia which is 132 years old, making it the new newest-oldest.

The Guardian reports that Tonya Illman found the 132-year-old gin bottle in the dunes near Wedge Island in January. Her husband, Kym Illman, told Guardian Australia she initially thought it was rubbish but picked it up because it had distinct, raised lettering and would be at home on their bookshelf. Inside, she found a roll of paper printed in German and dated to 12 June 1886, which was authenticated by the Western Australian Museum. 

The bottle had been thrown overboard from the German sailing ship Paula in 1886 as it crossed the Indian Ocean, 950 km from the Australian coast, according to Ross Anderson, the museum’s assistant curator of maritime archaeology. The bottle was one of the thousands of bottles thrown overboard as part of an experiment to observe ocean currents. Each bottle contained the ship’s position at the time when it was pitched into the sea. So far, 662 of the bottles have been recovered.

The bottle was dropped in the Indian Ocean at 32°49′S 105°25′E and was discovered about 510 nautical miles (940 km) away. The hand-made bottle had originally contained jenever, also known as Holland gin, and had come from Schiedam, South Holland, Netherlands.

World’s Oldest Message in a Bottle Discovered in Western Australia