Sometime around the 1940s my great grandfather Antonio Brazil, an unknown villager of the Sao Jorge island of the Azores, found a bottle with a note containing English text. After multiple attempts, when he found someone who would translate the note he had found out that his bottle was one of a few that were thrown out to sea for a promotion/contest. This promotion included a free trip to San Francisco.

This is a story I've heard all my life without much background information to go after. Recently pictures of the event have surfaced from a distant relative and it has rekindled by interest, especially with myself being a SF native two generations later. Does anyone have any more information on this event? When did it exactly happen? Anything leads at all would be appreciated.

Here are the two pictures in question that resurfaced