What happens you find an old book which was your treasure after years! Yes, the feeling is ecstatic… Well this is exactly what this couple in Germany might be feeling… After all they have found the oldest bottle message by the shore. The couple Marianne Winkler and her husband Horst was in a holiday when they spotted unusual bottle floating by the German island of Amrum. The message in the bottle read, “Please break it”, though the couple tried to get the message without breaking the bottle, but at the end they had to oblige by the message of the bottle and break it.
The note was written in three different languages :English, Dutch & German, and asked the founders to fill in the details, as where and when they found the bottle, after which it said to return the bottle to Marine Biological Association in Plymouth, UK. The prize for returning the bottle was 1 shilling.
The Biological Association were amazed on finding the bottle, which was released into the North Sea between 1904 and 1906, along with other 1020 bottles. This bottle was a part of the project, which was to check the strengths of the currents. This bottle is believed to belong in the same arena.
And, as promised the couple did receive one shilling in return of the bottle and are now awaiting Guinness World Records letter to confirm whether the message found is really the oldest. Previously, the bottle which was found was 99 years old.
And, for those who don’t know what shilling is, coin worth one twentieth of a pound sterling, or twelve pence. It was first minted in the reign of Henry VII as the testoon, and became known as the shilling sometime in the mid-sixteenth century, circulating until 1990.