George Marr doesn't remember losing his wallet in 1969 — but then again, most people wouldn't remember something like that 51 years later.

The 78-year-old Saint Johner was nothing short of surprised then, when his daughter dropped it off at his house Saturday afternoon. 

"I don't even know where I lost it or how I lost it," he said.

The wallet was found on a tugboat in the Saint John Harbour — the Atlantic Beech — by crewmembers onboard. Chief engineer Kelsie MacLean put a call out on Facebook on Saturday morning, asking if anyone knew the man whose name was all over the documents inside.

"Does anyone know a George Marr?" reads the post. "He would have worked at the Saint John shipyard in 1969. We found his wallet that's been sitting in the air ducting on the Atlantic Beech (Irving Beech) for 51 years." 

"It was in the duct work above the bathrooms," explained MacLean in an interview. She said the crew were working on renovations when they found it.

"We couldn't believe it had survived that long. It kind of shocked us." 

Victoria Muir, Marr's daughter, connected with MacLean, and soon enough was dropping off the wallet on his doorstep, after carefully sterilizing it. 

"If it was in the duct work, it must've been when I was working at the shipyard, because I used to go into the ventilation sometimes, or be underneath the boiler," said Marr. 

Inside the wallet was a treasure trove of memories. Registration for his Chevy convertible he owned in the '60s, his longshoreman's ID card, union membership cards from '65 and '66, a membership to the Marco Polo Club in Saint John, where he was "a member in good standing." 

And most treasured of all, a photo of his son Christopher, who died in a motorcycle accident in 1977, when he was just 16 years old.