Postcard 338 · 19 September 1908 · inscribed date

Card 338: An excursion to Lanškroun

The writer sends a picture from a walking excursion, describes two ponds and repeated swimming, and appears to refer to a school and time spent there. The duration and sender’s identity remain unresolved.

Maxim Egorov · prepared with AI assistance
Last updated 5 October 2026 at 09:11 UTC

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 readable phrases describe sending a picture of Lanškroun from an excursion and arriving on foot. The first occurrence, lanskrouna, supports the place-name reading with editorial capitalization and diacritics; the later lan??rouna remains partly unresolved. The address-side source separately names Anna Tichá, describes her as a teacher, and gives Pelhřimov as the destination.

The message describes a first pond on the left, dlouhy?, and a second nearer the town, kratky. These suggest “Long” and “Short,” but the final unknown after dlouhy remains unresolved and the literal alone does not establish formal pond names. The writer says he has swum across both ponds countless times.

The adjoining passage plausibly describes a large yellow building as a gymnasium, an academic secondary school, and recalls time spent there. The duration cannot be read, and the school and the writer’s connection to it remain unidentified.

A later phrase refers to more about the excursion in a contemporaneous note, if the proposed completion of ??ce as více is correct. The closing gives many greetings from p. That final letter is preserved without expansion into a name or title.

Modern municipal accounts name Dlouhý and Krátký in a pond chain northwest of Lanškroun and place Krátký beside the built-up area. This supports the proposed pond names and relative positions, although it does not establish their appearance in 1908. The town’s school history confirms that a gymnasium existed before 1908, but does not identify the building in this passage or the writer’s connection to it.

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.

First primary fixed-key literal (secondary output is identical)

sve ancicce posilam z vyletu
obrazek lanskrouna ze strany
od rybniku jsme do lan??rouna
pesky prisli prvni rybnik z
leve strany zove se dlouhy?
druhy blize u mesta kratky
oba rybniky jsem nescislne
krate preplaval ?elka zluta
budo?a pod ?ros?redni ?ezi
jes? ?ymnasium kde s?ravil
jsem ? ??ta ??ce o vyletu
v soucasnem psanku mnoho poz
dravu od p

What remains uncertain

One conservative source slot, B120 after dlouhy, may instead be punctuation. The 286-position alternative is retained in the source record, but was not selected or decoded by linguistic fit. The published first result remains 271/287 with 16 unknowns.
The final p does not identify a person. The affectionate form ancicce can be interpreted as Ančičce, but does not identify a historical person.
The image does not securely establish what the pointing mark refers to. No tower or building is identified from its alignment.
The source-only date review read 19.IX.1908, consistent with the catalogue. This establishes an inscription, not an independently verified composition, posting or receipt date.
No unbarred t form is securely identified; three positions retain barred/unbarred alternatives, so this card does not independently test that assignment. The identical secondary output exercises no mark transformation.

Source and method

Fresh test with the unchanged 24-entry key; 21 entries occur on this card. No new assignments or linguistic repairs.

First fixed-key prediction: 271 of 287 source positions mapped; 16 remain unknown. Secondary output is byte-identical, with no eligible mark transformations.

HCPortal catalogue record for card 338

19 September 1908 · inscribed date. The date label records its evidence source; it does not establish a posting or receipt date.

An independent picture-only inspection read the printed caption as “Landskron i. B. von der Leutgebhöhe gesehen” and the production line as “Fotogr. u. Verlag R. Piffl's Söhne, Landskron.” These are source inscriptions. That inspection did not consult the reverse, cipher key or plaintext and did not independently identify particular buildings, ponds or the intended target of a pointing mark.

The source transcription and mark-geometry records were frozen before the unchanged lookup. It mapped 271 of 287 positions, leaving 16 unknowns. The secondary result is identical because no marked form qualified for a transformation. A separate AI reviewer given only the literal found connected Czech and recorded the unresolved passages; its review does not measure historical plaintext accuracy.

Reading ?ymnasium as gymnasium supplies an unknown initial g. Modern Czech gymnázium would also change the resolved s to z; it is a modernization, not the saved spelling.

The municipal gymnasium history gives today’s address as nám. J. M. Marků 113, records its opening in temporary rooms in 1872, and notes that the building hosted the emperor in 1894. These details were consulted after decoding.

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

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.