Message In A Bottle Returns To Sender's Granddaughter After 101 Years Lost At Sea

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message in a bottle

Screenshot/DPA Video

It's the kind of story you'd think could only be found in books; a message in a bottle returns home after a century of floating out at sea.

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But last month, a fisherman pulled the beer bottle out of the Baltic sea near the city of Kiel. Inside, a postcard, dated 1913 by a man named Richard Platz, complete with two German stamps and one simple request. He asked the finder to send it on to his address in Berlin when found.

He returned it to the International Maritime Museum in Hamburg, who was able to track down 62-year-old Angela Erdmann, Platz's granddaughter.

Erdmann visited the museum on April 7 and was able to hold the brown bottle once held by her believed maternal grandfather.

message in a bottle

Screenshot/DPA Video

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"It was almost unbelievable," Erdmann told the German news agency DPA.

Experts will try deciphering the rest of the message, which was hard to read due to time and water damage.

According to the Guinness Book of Records, this drift bottle will bypass the original record holder that was found in the United Kingdom after spending nearly 98 years at sea.