MS treasure hunter found a message in a bottle from 1983. Then his quest really began.

When retired school principal and amateur treasure hunter Jeremy Weir set sail last Monday, he had no idea he would stumble across a Grolsch beer bottle with a handwritten message tucked inside from almost 40 years ago.

It was Weir’s penchant for collecting driftwood, seaglass, fossils, and old bottles that led him to investigate a big drift on the Pearl River near Bogalusa, Louisiana, where the bottle was found.

“I found it in the Pearl River when I was out on Monday,” Weir, a Coast native, said. “I saw this one and just scooped it up, threw it in the boat and went on about my business.”

When Weir got home that night, he noticed something in the bottle. Not thinking much of it, he and his wife opened it up to find a sealed plastic bag with a piece of paper inside.

On that paper, written on the back of a 1983 calendar, there was a message dated June 4, 1983. It was signed by David Blanks, who was three years old when he wrote the message.

The note read:

The finder of my mystery bottle,

My name is David Blanks. I live in Jackson, Mississippi. I am 3 years old. If you find my bottle, please call me at (601) 956-5378 – call collect.

Good luck and happy hunting!

David

After searching for Blanks online and not finding anything, Weir, along with his wife and daughter, discovered that the number 3 year-old David Blanks provided was a landline still in use by his parents. They then used that information to track down Blanks’ contact information.

“So we called him and, of course, he was just astonished that we had found that bottle, 39 and a half years later,” Weir said. “We talked with him and his wife, and told him what was going on. Of course they were ecstatic. He didn’t remember it; I mean he was 3 years old. So he started calling around and talking to some family members.”

Weir also got in contact with some of Blanks’ family members, including a cousin that lives in Slidell.

“He (the cousin) says that the bottle was dropped in the Pearl River down by Lot 1, which is far south of where I found the bottle,” Weir said. “I found the bottle up river just south of Bogalusa. He claims that the bottle was dropped in near the city of Pearl River, so how it got that far north, who knows. Of course, it’s been floating around out there for 40 years.”

Weir and his wife have plans to meet up with Blanks and his wife in the near future to give him his childhood letter back.

Weir said he was “blown away” by the incident, and is happy to have made a new friend from it.

“You think back to what’s happened since that bottle was dropped in the water, how far advanced we are,” Weir said. “And just that little statement ‘call collect’ is a look back in history.”

This story was originally published January 20, 2023 at 10:01 AM.