Tracey Williams with two washed-up Tjipetir blocks Photo: Tom Quinn Williams
For the last several years, and perhaps much longer, blocks of a rubber-like substance have been washing ashore on the beaches of Great Britain, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. The blocks are rectangular with rounded corners and about the size of a kitchen chopping block. Each is engraved with the letters “THIPETIR.” Where they came from and how they began washing up on British and European shores has been a mystery. Now, Tracy Williams, a beachcomer from Newquay, Cornwall may have found the answer.
After finding a “THIPETIR” block while walking her dog on a beach near her home in 2010, Ms. Williams began her own investigation. She learned that Thipetir was the name of a rubber plantation in Indonesia which was in operation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The blocks themselves, however, are not rubber. They appear to be a tree gum known as gutta-percha, which was used as an electrical insulator and an alternative to plastic in the early 20th century.
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