Mystery solved: 60-year-old chemistry notebook finds owner via Instagram

Ece Çelebioğlu picked a cache of items at an antique shop in Istanbul last week, according to a June 9 report by Turkish daily Cumhuriyet. “[The shop’s owner] was excited about a notebook. It was in such mint condition that we couldn’t predicts its age. The handwriting and drawings in this chemistry class notebook were incredibly impressive,” she reportedly said.


Hoping to find its owner, Çelebioğlu posted the photos of the notebook on her Instagram account, stating that it belonged to a certain male student named “Ömer Kotan” from Haydarpaşa High School. “I started to dream: If I could meet the notebook’s owner, memories would be remembered and perhaps I would be able to learn its story,” she told the daily.


Kotan’s old friends saw the Instagram posting and notified Kotan, now a civil engineer. “I immediately remembered my notebook. I experienced many feelings, including surprise, excitement and joy at the same time. I couldn’t believe that social media brought it back to me,” he told the newspaper.


The two met in Istanbul and spoke for hours about the notebook. It was revealed that the notebook that Kotan used for his high school chemistry laboratory experiments was written from 1957 to 1958. 


“I thought it was one of the things we had thrown away when my family moved decades ago. I have no idea how it ended up in an antique store in such clean condition,” he said.

Çelebioğlu, however, has mixed feelings. “One of my friends told me that he was a bit disappointed that I could find the owner in less than a day. How can we protect the mystery of anything now?” she asked.