In 1912, a young woman living in Winchester near Southampton received three postcards encrypted in a pigpen variant. Can a reader decipher these?

Deutsche Version des Artikels (Beta)

Crypto collector Mark Baldwin, who recently provided me an encrypted postcard from Dorchester, has sent me scans of a few more pieces from his collection. Among other things, he provided me a series of three pigpen-encrypted postcards from October 1912.

The receiver of all three cards was a Miss Unsworth, living in Twyford, UK. Twyford (not to be confused with a place of the same name in the Thames Valley) is a borough of Winchester in the south of England. Winchester is mainly known for its world-famous cathedral. The closest big city is Southampton.

Like most other encrypted postcards I am aware of, these three appear to have been written by a young man to his lover. The first one was stamped in Shawford, a southern suburb of Winchester:

Source: Mark Baldwin

The second card was stamped in Winchester:

Source: Mark Baldwin

The third card was stamped in Shawford again:

Source: Mark Baldwin

 

The encryption system used

The encryption system used by the unkown sender is probably a variant of the pigpen cipher. The following diagram represents one pigpen flavor, though certainly not the one employed here:

Source: Schmeh

As the spaces in the ciphertext are marked by commas, it should be possible to guess words.

Can a reader decipher these messages?


Further reading: A postcard with a Sherlock Holmes type encryption

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Kommentare (8)

  1. #1 Matthew Brown
    8. November 2020

    [ OCT 24 ]
    DEAREST AL I HOPE YOU
    ARE FEELING BETTER TO-
    DAY YOU LOOKED ROUGH
    LAST NIGHT I WENT UP
    TO BERT’S THIS MORNING
    DID NOT SEE YOU BEEN
    WORKING HARD TO SEE YOU
    TOMORROW WITH FONDEST
    LOVE AND KISSES YOURS EVER BOB

    OH YOU ARE
    XXXXXXXX

    [ OCT 25 ]
    DEAREST AL JUST ONE
    MORE I HOPE YOU ARE
    FEELING BETTER BEEN
    WORKING HARD TODAY
    TOM IS COMING TOMORROW
    IF FINE NOT CERTAIN
    ABOUT PHIL WILL GET
    TO WINCHESTER 10-30
    LEAVE AGAIN 8-30

    TA TA DEAR TILL 2-30
    TOMORROW WITH FOND LOVE
    AND KISSES FROM BOB XXXXXX

    [ OCT 26 ]
    DEAREST AL JUST ONE
    MORE HOPE YOU ARE BETTER
    TODAY JUST GOING UP
    HOME LEFT THE EGGS
    THERE LAST NIGHT HAVE
    GOT TO START MY JOB
    TOMORROW MORNING NOW
    SO THINK OF ME ABOUT
    SIX WITH FONDEST LOVE
    AND KISSES YOURS EVER BOB

    OH YOU ARE
    XXXXXXX

  2. #2 Klaus Schmeh
    8. November 2020

    @Matthew: Contragtualtions, great job.

  3. #3 Gerry
    8. November 2020

    On ancestry.com there is Alice Elizabeth Unsworth from Twyford (1879 or 1880 – 1941) who – according to another database of Twyford marriages – married Robert Henry Abraham (1890 – 1959) on June 19th 1915. They had two children born 1917 and 1921, so they may be “our” Al and Bob.

  4. #4 Klaus Schmeh
    8. November 2020

    The two lovers were named Alice and Bob???
    This is unbelievable! So far Alice and Bob have only been known as fictional characters in cryptology:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_and_Bob

  5. #5 Gerd
    8. November 2020

    >This is unbelievable!
    Klaus it seems these cards are THE ideal didactic examples for future use in your talks or books.

  6. #6 Andreas Janke
    9. November 2020

    I find it remarkable that in 1912, one could write “see you tomorrow” on a postcard. Today, I would not bet on arriving any card in the current year.

  7. #7 Klaus Schmeh
    9. November 2020

    The stamps on these cards represent a code, too:

    https://pastandpresent.com/2014/06/02/the-hidden-language-of-stamps/

  8. #8 Klaus Schmeh
    9. November 2020

    Bill Ricker via Facebook:
    The good ladies in my home town post office complained sufficiently about the orthography of my post-cards home from college. Had i used pig-pen cipher they’d have rioted.