Compete to crack secrets lost to history—for fun, clout, and (no) profit
Most of this card is ordinary English. “Hello” precedes a five-sign group; “now” precedes a longer group; three final signs close the note. The longer insert repeats the whole five-sign group. That repetition lets the initial reading be checked elsewhere on the same object.
The signs use the same standard three-dot Pigpen convention documented in the Ray Bartley packet. Nine row-major positions in a 3 × 3 frame are crossed with one, two, or three dots: A–I, J–R, then S–Z. The method is familiar. The task is to read each physical frame and its dot count correctly. [1]
| Source field | Frames and interior dots | Reading |
|---|---|---|
| After Hello | bottom-middle/1; middle-right/2; center/2; center/1; bottom-left/3 | HONEY |
| After now | bottom-right/1; top-right/2, middle-right/2, middle-left/3, center/1; bottom-left/3, middle-right/2, top-right/3; repeated first group | I LOVE YOU HONEY |
| Final signs | top-middle/1; top-left/2; top-right/1 | BJC |
The final Y of the longer insert wraps onto the next physical line. It was initially easy to treat as an isolated residual. Its bottom-left frame and three dots match both other Y occurrences. The same table reads the final three signs as BJC without assigning them a name. [2]
Hello [HONEY] how is times with you they are fine with me. I want to see you at the Party to- morrow night now [I LOVE YOU HONEY] be sure and come. I must stop from a friend [BJC]
With punctuation supplied: “Hello, honey. How is times with you? They are fine with me. I want to see you at the party tomorrow night. Now, I love you, honey. Be sure and come. I must stop. From a friend, BJC.” The source grammar “how is times” is retained. Only the bracketed portions were concealed.
Each field is determined by visible frame positions and dot counts under the same fixed table. The repeated HONEY and all three Y occurrences provide internal consistency checks. The closing initials are not a semantic guess from the invitation. No broader control bank or newly recovered secret alphabet is claimed.
The card is HCP1490, pc_hcp_171, cataloged 1911, to Miss Annie Kepler at Middletown, Frederick County, Maryland. Its picture shows the War Correspondents’ Memorial Arch at Gapland. The exact postmark day is not promoted, and BJC is not expanded to a person’s name.
The 29 August 2026 audit found no attached answer, no same-recipient sibling in the two reviewed inventories of 995 and 570 cards, and no exact-item public reading in the declared name and phrase searches. That supports a complete campaign reading of this one item, not a first-ever priority claim or a biographical identification. The archive’s Pigpen tag was a public classification, not a supplied plaintext. [3]