Compete to crack secrets lost to history—for fun, clout, and (no) profit
The writer makes both Morse dots and Morse dashes as horizontal strokes: short for dot, long for dash. Small round points end letters; larger filled bullets end words. Those four functions have to be kept apart. Ordinary International Morse then reads both cards without a second key.
An early sampling pass used a row spacing of 35 pixels and produced gibberish. The corrected deskewed spacing was about 32–33 pixels. That was an image-registration failure, not evidence of a different cryptosystem. Its output was withdrawn before the complete source edition. [4]
P.S. YOU CAN SEND ME A LINE BACK IF Y- OU LIKE ITS A LO- NG WA[K?] YOU KNO- W March 2d 1911. DEAR NELL [M/J]UST A WI[E/R]E TO LET [YOU] KNOW TH[A/T]T I AM STI[LL] ALIVE AN[D] KICKIN[G] HOPE Y[OU] [ARE] THE SAME I HAD A LET[T]ER FROM E. J[damaged/invalid group]IT ON MOND[E/A]Y I W[T/I]LL SH[M/O]W YOU IT [C]OME S- UNDAY IT MI- GH[T] INTERE[S/T] [Y]OU WELL SO LONG TI- L[L] SUNDAY SWE[E]THEART WI- TH BEST LOVE AND KISSES X YOURS AL- WAYS XXX GEORGE
In readable prose: “Dear Nell, just a wire to let you know that I am still alive and kicking. Hope you are the same. I had a letter from E. J[?]it on Monday. I will show it to you come Sunday. It might interest you. Well, so long till Sunday, sweetheart, with best love and kisses. X. Yours always. XXX. George.”
The P.S. asks for a line back and says “It’s a long wa[k?], you know.” Both walk and way are plausible; neither is silently selected. The source order is I WILL SHOW YOU IT, changed only in the readable prose. The personal name after E. stays damaged.
P.S. SAVE ME ONE FOR SUNDAY I AM READY FOR ONE NOW NELL May 10th 1911. DEAR NELL [M/J]UST A L- INE AS USU- AL HOPE TO GET [A] LINE FR- OM YOU B- Y RETURN I AM WELL SO LONG TILL SUN- DAY SWE[E/T]- THEART WI- TH BEST LOVE AND KISSES X YOURS AL- WAYS XXX GEORGE
The main note asks for a reply, says the writer is well, and looks ahead to Sunday, closing with “sweetheart,” “best love and kisses,” and “Yours always.” Its postscript is the cleanest mechanically checked span of the pair:
| Recorded short/long marks | Reading |
|---|---|
.../ .-/ ...-/ .// --/ .// ---/ -./ .// ..-./ ---/ .-.// .../ ..-/ -./ -../ .-/ -.--// ../ // .-/ --// .-./ ./ .-/ -../ -.--// ..-./ ---/ .-.// ---/ -./ .// -./ ---/ .--// -./ ./ .-../ .-..// | SAVE / ME ONE / FOR / SUNDAY / I AM / READY / FOR ONE / NOW NELL |
Here a dot represents a short horizontal stroke, a dash a long one, a slash a small letter-ending point, and a double slash a large word-ending bullet. The P.S. returns exactly under the standard alphabet without a semantic crib. It reads, “Save me one for Sunday. I am ready for one now, Nell.” What one means is not stated. A kiss is plausible in context but is not an additional plaintext word.
Both bodies begin with a malformed group resembling MUST or a damaged J where the readable sentence calls for JUST. HCP1501 also has single-sign slips in WIRE, THAT, MONDAY, WILL, SHOW, and INTEREST. HCP1502 omits or merges the article boundary in GET [A] LINE and has a damaged SWEETHEART sequence. These are documented repairs, not a claim that the complete body is error-free Morse. [2]
The shared hand, address, unusual rendering, delimiter system, repeated slips, closing, and George signature support a two-card packet. The open address is Miss O. Davy; the private salutation is Dear Nell. The cards do not explain the difference, so the two names are preserved without turning O. Davy into a separate sender.
The saved body editions do not preserve complete raw dot-and-dash streams. Only the May postscript has a dependable full mark transcription in the saved text used for these pages. The source links are needed to check the earlier postscript and both main bodies.
Both messages have complete readable editions with source repairs shown. HCP1501 retains an unresolved proper name and P.S. word. Only the exact May P.S. is claimed as a wholly clean mechanical span here. The ordinary Morse alphabet is public; the work identifies its physical rendering and reads these particular objects.
The 29 August 2026 prior-answer check covered the recipient and address, Gilberdyke, both IDs, and distinctive phrases. It found no earlier item-level public solution in those searches. Private collection records, unindexed work, and civil identities remain outside that conclusion. No image reuse license is established. [3]