In an online forum, two encrypted postcards from 1911 have been posted. Can a reader solve them?

Deutsche Version des Artikels (Beta)

In 2016, I introduced an encrypted postcard from Ohio I had found in a stamp collectors’ discussion forum. As usual, my readers broke this cryptogram on the same day.

Source: Stamp Community

Last week, I received a message from Greg from Pendleton, Oregon, who is a user of the said discussion forum. Greg has recently posted scans of two more encrypted postcards, written by the same person. As no solution has been posted yet, I decided to cover these cards on my blog. I hope and trust that once again my readers will solve them.

 

The two postcards

The two postcards in question were sent to a certain Arthur Gates, living in Truro, a small town in the Canadian state of Nova Scotia. They are dated 1911.

Source: Stamp Community

It is unusual that the recipient of these cards was male. Most encrypted postcards were sent by young men to their lovers. The gender of the sender is not known to me.

The first card was sent to Truro from nearby Windsor, Canada. As the ciphertext message is written upside-down, the following scan is turned by 180 degrees:

Source: Stamp Community

The second card was sent from Upper Clements, another Nova Scotia town (the message is also written upside-down):

Source: Stamp Community

 

Solution approaches

Although French is spoken in parts of Canada, I assume that the plaintext language of these cards is English. This is because the name of the recipient is English, and Nova Scotia has only a small French-speaking minority.

The cipher used is most likely a simple substitution (MASC). As there is plenty of ciphertext available for analysis, word guessing and/or frequency analysis should provide enough information to solve the encryption.

Can a reader deipher these two postcards? Greg and the other stamp collectors from the said discussion forum will certainly be interested to learn what the plaintexts say.


Further reading:
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/763282653806483/

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Kommentare (7)

  1. #1 Armin
    28. November 2020

    Quite a lot of abbreviations were used in this card, that made it a little difficult. Anyway, the first card read like this:

    MY DARLING – ACK YR. LOVELY CARD
    REC’D 2DAY + WAS SO GLAD 2 HEAR F
    ROM MY DEAR. I SENT A LETTER
    2 TRURO MONDAY AS I DID’NT
    GET YOUR LETTER UNTIL MOND
    AY ALSO YR. CARD. YR. LETTER WAS
    MISSENT 2 (UY.CLARENCE.) I AM ALL
    OVER MY COLD. IT IS QUITE CO
    LD HERE 2NIGHT. HOW BUSY
    HAVE BEEN EXPECT WILL SOON
    B GOING HOME. I HAV’NT HEARD
    ANY ONE SAY ANY THING ABOUT
    MRS. WM. GATES IS VISITING
    US. SHE CAME 2DAY FROM BOST
    ON. I HAVE TRIED 2 GET YR. TIE
    DONE THIS WK. HAV’NT IT
    QUITE DONE AS I HAVE BEEN
    SO BUSY. FATHER HAS’NT
    USED HIS LAMPS YET. HOW
    I WISH I COULD “C” 2NIGHT. KEEP LITTLE
    BOX UNTIL COME. THERE IS NO NEWS
    2 WRITE MOTHER SENDS HER LOVE + KNOW
    YR. LITTLE GIRL ALWAS DOES. I SEND LOTS + L
    OTS. + SOME OTHER THINGS FROM YR OWN DOLLY

  2. #2 Gerry
    28. November 2020

    The second (shorter) one has vertical lines as word delimiters and dots as periods. Guessing the signature (Harry, Sally, Dolly, …) and the first word of letters (Dear) lead me to the solution. Interestingly the symbol 2 stands for to, too, and two, the \\ with a horizonal line above and below means YOU, / and \ are E, .\. is V, .\\. is W. All others are MASC. So here we go:

    Dear Jack: your two cards rec’d (received) yesterday (Sat.). Very glad to hear from you. Expect you were too busy today to write. Was home all day.
    Had a dandy dinner. Uncle Lev (confirmed by the cleartext note on the side) is still in bed with pleurisy. Dr. was here this a.m.
    I have been reading “Lonefellow’s Poems” this eve. I just love them. I can’t imagine how pleased I am to possess such am gift from a dear friend.
    Lovingly Dolly

  3. #3 Klaus Schmeh
    28. November 2020

    @Armin, Gerry: Once again, great job! And very fast! Thank you very much.

  4. #4 Armin
    28. November 2020

    I mistook one symbol (the curvy ‘E’) for a space, but, like in the second card, it seems to be a special symbol for the word “YOU”. This looks better now:

    MY DARLING: ACK YR. LOVELY CARD
    REC’D 2DAY + WAS SO GLAD 2 HEAR F
    ROM YOU MY DEAR. I SENT YOU A LETTER
    2 TRURO MONDAY AS I DID’NT
    GET YOUR LETTER UNTIL MOND
    AY ALSO YR. CARD. YR. LETTER WAS
    MISSENT 2 (UY.CLARENCE.) I AM ALL
    OVER MY COLD. IT IS QUITE CO
    LD HERE 2NIGHT. HOW BUSY YOU
    HAVE BEEN EXPECT YOU WILL SOON
    B GOING HOME. I HAV’NT HEARD
    ANY ONE SAY ANY THING ABOUT
    US) MRS. WM. GATES IS VISITING
    US. SHE CAME 2DAY FROM BOST
    ON. I HAVE TRIED 2 GET YR. TIE
    DONE THIS WK. HAV’NT IT
    QUITE DONE AS I HAVE BEEN
    SO BUSY. FATHER HAS’NT
    USED HIS LAMPS YET. HOW
    I WISH I COULD “C” YOU 2NIGHT. KEEP LITTLE
    BOX UNTIL YOU COME. THERE IS NO NEWS
    2 WRITE MOTHER SENDS HER LOVE + YOU KNOW
    YOUR. LITTLE GIRL ALWAS DOES. I SEND YOU LOTS + L
    OTS. + SOME OTHER THINGS FROM YOUR OWN DOLLY

  5. #5 Gerd
    28. November 2020

    Congrats, I am very impressed how you come up with complete solutions in such a short time. I would like to know what your approach to solve such a cipher (mostly MASC) is. Do you prepare a transcription and solve or guess by computer or is it a paper and pencil guessing on a printout? Or something else?

  6. #6 Gerry
    28. November 2020

    @Gerd: For postcards I use my iPad for the photo and only pen and a A5 paper notebook (5mm raster) – one line for the cipher text and one for the cleartext, one line free, line by line. Here I only wrote down the first line and the last line as a start.
    I try to find the word and sentence delimiters first. Then any words that contain duplicate symbols or are very long or very short, as they are easier to guess. And it helps if you know if the language that is used is known, e.g. English or German!

  7. #7 Esme
    28. November 2020

    I guess there is a simple reason, why most encrypted postcards are from young men to their girlfriends. Because the ladies kept the cards dearly and so they survived. I am sure, many of the ladies wrote back to their men, but the guys lost the cards or threw them away.