Compete to crack secrets lost to history—for fun, clout, and (no) profit
The first card was cataloged to “Gdna Mist,” but its physical address reads Edna Mist, the recipient of the second card. Both go to Piggott, Arkansas. Their similar signs and address hands make a comparison worthwhile; the repeated recipient and holiday art cannot by themselves identify a cipher key or a romantic relationship.[1]
The signs resemble numerals, letters, and mathematical marks. Their appearance does not make them arithmetic. Native source review corrected the start of HCP1410 to ordinary Dec. 29, separated punctuation from a cipher sign, and recognized a hook-plus-dash as one composite character. Two supposed digraphs were actually separate signs. HCP1412 also extends to eleven rows: a first eight-row crop had left out three rows in the embossed lower field.[2]
HCP1410 has the same twelve-letter run in its second and fourth rows. The recovery reads that run as COULD NOT COME; the surrounding rows produce MOTHER WAS SO SICK, I WILL NOT GET TO, and the school reference under the same one-sign-per-letter table. The first six-sign run is FRIEND. An early merger of its F-like first sign with the numeral-like 7 was corrected from the source, not retained as a second value for M.[4]
| Recorded sign | Reads |
|---|---|
| 1 | A |
| CURL-C / CURL-S | C |
| LONG-d | D |
| 2 | E |
| F-like sign | F |
| FILLED-OVAL (HCP1410); CLASS-02 (HCP1412, archived label G) | G |
| H-like sign | H |
| 3 | I |
| K-HOOK | K |
| 6 | L |
| 7 | M |
| 8 | N |
| 4 | O |
| 9 | R |
| EQ | S |
| DIV | T |
| U-COMP | U |
| OB | W |
| X-like sign | X |
| y-like sign | Y |
The source reader described HCP1410’s relevant sign as a filled/slashed oval and used the label G in the HCP1412 source stream. The observed-key record assigns G to the former, while the released HCP1412 occurrence readings give the latter that same value. The aliases FILLED-OVAL and CLASS-02 keep those two source notations visible. Their common reading is part of the recorded solution; this editorial crosswalk does not independently establish that their pen strokes are identical.[4]
The observed table covers 20 letters. B, J, P, Q, V, and Z do not occur and remain unassigned. These are the observed key entries, not a reconstructed full alphabet for hypothetical further cards.
| Physical row | Recorded signs | Reads |
|---|---|---|
| R1 | [open date: Dec. 29] | F 9 3 2 8 LONG-d : - | 3 | FRIEND:- I |
| R2 | CURL-C 4 U-COMP 6 LONG-d | 8 4 DIV | CURL-S 4 7 2 | X 7 1 EQ | COULD NOT COME XMAS |
| R3 | 7 4 DIV H 2 9 | OB 1 EQ | EQ 4 | EQ 3 CURL-C K-HOOK | MOTHER WAS SO SICK |
| R4 | 3 | CURL-S 4 U-COMP 6 LONG-d | 8 4 DIV | CURL-S 4 7 2 | I COULD NOT COME |
| R5 | 3 OB 3 6 6 | 8 4 DIV | [FILLED-OVAL] 2 DIV | DIV 4 | I WILL NOT GET TO |
| R6 | CURL-S 4 7 2 | DIV 3 6 6 | 7 y | EQ CURL-S [H: source-damaged] 4 4 6 | COME TILL MY SC[H]OOL |
| R7 | 3 EQ | 4 U-COMP [DIV with an attached descending slash/flourish] | IS OUT[terminal flourish/punctuation] |
Dec. 29 FRIEND:- I COULD NOT COME XMAS MOTHER WAS SO SICK I COULD NOT COME I WILL NOT GET TO COME TILL MY SC[H]OOL IS OUT[terminal flourish/punctuation]
The picture-side border adds the ordinary sentence I would like a line from you all. Scattered faint strokes over the picture’s blue field cannot be organized into a dependable stream and are not included in this reading.
The exact FRIEND ciphertext recurs at the end of HCP1412’s first row. The HCP1410 table then reads all 101 visible letter cells of HCP1412 without a writer-error repair or a new entry. The SCHOOL, COME, XMAS, and FRIEND strings check transfer across the two cards. GOING repeats twice within HCP1412, providing an additional internal check on that card.
| Row | Recorded signs | Transferred reading |
|---|---|---|
| R1 | 7 y LONG-d 2 1 9 | F 9 3 2 8 LONG-d | MY DEAR FRIEND |
| R2 | 3 1 7 | CLASS-02 2 DIV DIV 3 8 CLASS-02 | I AM GETTING |
| R3 | 1 6 4 8 CLASS-02 | F 3 8 2 | 3 8 | ALONG FINE IN |
| R4 | EQ CURL-S H 4 4 6 | 3 | 1 7 | SCHOOL I AM |
| R5 | CLASS-02 4 3 8 CLASS-02 | DIV 4 | CURL-S 4 7 2 | GOING TO COME |
| R6 | LONG-d 4 OB 8 | DIV H 2 9 2 | DOWN THERE |
| R7 | X 7 1 EQ | 3 OB 4 U-COMP 6 LONG-d | XMAS I WOULD |
| R8 | 6 3 K-HOOK 2 | DIV 4 | LIKE TO |
| R9 | K-HOOK 8 4 OB | 3 F | y 4 U-COMP | KNOW IF YOU |
| R10 | 1 9 2 | CLASS-02 4 3 8 CLASS-02 | ARE GOING |
| R11 | DIV 4 | CURL-S 4 7 2 | TO COME |
The earlier card, postmarked 24 November 1908, reports that the writer is getting along well in school and plans to come down for Christmas. The later card says the writer’s mother was too ill for a Christmas visit and that school must finish before another visit. An independent source reader checked the native occurrences; the complete transfer has no plaintext mismatch. HCP1410’s H in SC[H]OOL remains physically damaged, supported by surviving strokes and the clean second-card H rather than claimed as unobscured ink.[4]
The two address-side messages are read; HCP1410’s picture-field marks remain unresolved. Its cancel shows 1909 but a weak month resembling NOV conflicts with open Dec. 29 if both dates belong to that year. No exact mailing day is promoted. The source suggests a shared writer and system but does not identify the writer, age, gender, school, or a courtship. “Friend,” school, illness, and “you all” establish a bounded family and household context.
Both portal records were “Not solved” with null keys on 29 August 2026. Bounded ID, recipient/address, phrase, public-cipher, and local-index checks found no prior exact-item solution, operative key, or further Edna Mist sibling. This is new to those checked sources, not proof that the messages had never been read.[3]