UK marine research group receives 108-year-old message in a bottle, may be

George Parker Bidder was studying deep marine currents when he released the bottle off Devon in 1906.

Baker said an old shilling has in fact been sent back to the couple who returned the postcard from the bottle.

The bottle was released in the North Sea between 1904 and 1906 and found by a woman on a beach in Amrum, Germany.

“It’s always a joy when someone finds a message in a bottle on the beach”, Mrs Winkler told the Amrum News.

After making the find, she took it home to her husband, Horst Winkler, for further inspection, and that’s when they noticed the message, “Break the Bottle”.

The bottle was tossed into the North Sea between 1904 and 1906, the Marine Biological Association of the UK, based in the southern English city of Plymouth, said Friday. Guy Baker, the MBA’s modern-day spokesman, told the Telegraph that most of the bottles turned up within months of their original release, many of them found by fisherman.

The bottle, which contained a note from British scientist George Parker Bidder, is likely the oldest message in a bottle in history, The Telegraph reported.

The bottle was found by a couple on the German island of Amrum.

The discovery of an older message-in-a-bottle was claimed in Germany past year , but has not yet been recognised.

“Others washed up on the shore, and some were never recovered”.

The bottles were specially created to float just above the sea bed, so they would be carried by the currents deep below the surface. “We certainly weren’t expecting to receive any more of the postcards”.

Mr Baker said: “We’re still waiting for confirmation from the Guinness Book of Records”.

The British association also kept its word on the reward, sending an old shilling to the German couple. “We sent it to her with a letter saying “Thank you”.