Compete to crack secrets lost to history—for fun, clout, and (no) profit
The common address, open Charlie sign-offs, card stock, and handwriting make these a defensible two-card packet. Both private fields preserve word gaps. That permits repeated groups and doubled signs to be tested across the two messages, while the open sign-offs remain independent of any recovered alphabet.
HCP1426 yielded the more complete initial alphabet. Repeated-word patterns and the correspondence context supported MY DARLING BETTY; its assignments then propagated through the shorter words and were checked on the other card. A proposed salutation is only a foothold. Reuse across both bodies supplies the stronger test. [3]
MY DARLING BETTY. THANKS VERY MUCH FOR YOUR LETTER. I HAD A P.C. FROM PERCY YESTERDAY. I HOPE IT WILL BE FINE TONIGHT. BALL IS TONIGHT. WRITE ME A LINE. Love Charlie
The last line is open handwriting. P.C. is retained as written; the recorded reading interprets it as postcard. The source date is unreadable, so 14 March 1906 is a catalogue date, not a recovered postmark.
01 MY · DARLING · 02 BETTY · I · HOPE · 03 YOU · ARE · QUITE · 04 WELL · HOPE · YOU · 05 WILL · LIKE · 06 THIRS · I · AND · TILL · 07 ARE · GOING · N[?] · STANAGE · 08 ON · THURSDAY · IF 09 FINE · IM · SO · LONGING · 10 TO · SEE · YOU · AGAIN 11 DEAR
Joined for reading: “My darling Betty. I hope you are quite well. Hope you will like THIRS. I and Till are going N[?] Stanage on Thursday if fine. I’m so longing to see you again, dear.” The open source audit additionally records the diagonal note “I hope you / do not mind” and a margin sign-off “Love Charlie.” A member solution describes the sign-off as “With love from Charlie”; that small documentary discrepancy remains in the record rather than being silently harmonized. [2][6]
| Source result | Possible intention | Test |
|---|---|---|
| THIRS | THI[R]S, intended THIS | Five different source signs; THESE would require repeated E and conflict at three positions |
| N[?] | N[R], intended NR. or near | First sign independently N; unique dotted second form is not the ordinary R sign |
| TILL | A name or nickname | T-I-L-L fits the shared alphabet exactly; Lill would alter the initial sign |
The two-character N[?] is not a single compound sign. The inner dot belongs to its second character; the ordinary separator comes after both. ON, UP, BY, and TO each fail both established sign values. “Near” preserves the first value and has good sense, but it still requires an unattested variant or a writing error in the second position. It remains a contextual expansion.
A sealed source-only reader fixed the physical line and group structure before seeing the candidate. Its early class inventory merged several T/7-like signs. Later inspection securely separated dotted from undotted forms. The finer distinction between R-like and V-like roles was guided by the attack and remained less certain in morphology alone. That later reconciliation is not a blind confirmation of every letter. [5]
The accepted reading checks repeated HOPE and YOU, the doubled L in WELL, WILL, and TILL, the repeated first/last sign of GOING, the repeated A in STANAGE and AGAIN, and the doubled E in SEE. The same alphabet explains both cards apart from the two explicitly retained anomalies.
The postmark on HCP1425 reads 5 March 1906; the portal gives 6 March. HCP1426’s scan does not securely reveal its day. A bounded 28 August 2026 search covered both IDs, filenames, correspondents, address, and distinctive phrases, and found no public key or plaintext. The private collection’s earlier ownership chain and any private prior reading remain unknown. Charlie’s full identity, Betty’s legal name, Till, and the expansion of N[?] are not independently established. [4]