What the card says
An editorial summary of the readable passages, rather than a complete translation of every sign. The sender remains unidentified; the nickname and similar language across cards do not establish a single writer.
The connected passages suggest a writer who had hoped to travel, could not manage it, and expects a spring meeting. The latter part appears to refer to the addressee preparing for a ball, asks to be remembered, and closes with affectionate kisses. Several names and incomplete words still resist exact reading.
The saved close ends in pepouse. Pepouše is a conventional Czech normalization of that nickname form; it is not an identification of the writer.
Saved literal readings
This is the saved decoding output. Question marks mark unresolved source units, which may be single letters, digraphs or uncertain groupings of strokes. Spelling defects, line breaks and source-region labels are preserved; proposed corrections are discussed separately.
Development-card additive literal
vrely dik drahousku za ??esni drahy
listek doufal jsem ze prece budu moci
odejeti do budejovi? neslo to vsak
nikterak tesim se vsak ze se behem
jara setkame a ze budu moci sve
jedine srdecko vasni ve zlibati
ve svinech vzpom?n sobe take na
mne vyrid l?skave slecne jankove me poruceni
nyni se asi me srdecko ?ripravuje do plesu skoda
ze ne?ohu nyni k tobe tisic dlohych vasni
vych pus od touzebne vzpominajiciho pepouse
What remains uncertain
- The displayed 336/343 coverage includes post-fit source refinements. It must not be counted as an independent test of the key.
- The literal dlohych is preserved. A smooth reading as dlouhých would insert u, and no such insertion or confirmed dialect explanation is established.
- The 198 inscription was rechecked after catalogue metadata had been seen; that date check was not blinded.
Source and method
Development card; post-fit additive reading, not an independent prediction.
Development reading: 336 of 343 source positions mapped; 7 remain unknown.
HCPortal catalogue record for card 198 · Open the original photograph
30 January 1904 · inscribed date. The date label records its evidence source; it does not establish a posting or receipt date.
This was the development card. The numerical search used 328 secure unmarked positions from its 343-position transcription, grouped into 21 graphical classes. Source review then distinguished k and z forms and proposed a capped ch form, producing 23 assignments before the first test on card 440. The displayed reading also includes later source-based proposals within this same development material.
The source transcriptions and language checks were AI-generated. No external human expert review is claimed. Coverage counts signs assigned a value, not verified correct letters; one sign can produce the two-letter Czech ch.
Evidence and context
- Original study: development and fixed-key testing
- First-edition partial key and staged mark rules
- Official HCPortal catalogue record: pc_hcp_198
- Official HCPortal picture-side source image
- Development-card additive literal — exact text download
Editorial revision, 5 October 2026: the explanation has been reorganized and repeated cautions shortened. Saved Czech outputs, numerical results and source links are unchanged. Photographs remain linked at their source.