Calling on all extraordinaire cipher and Code breakers

[Crow]

Gidday All

Old Crow here is all in a flap because he realizes he has zero talent for decoding ciphers. So in my bird brain confusion I am inviting all and every one who has or thinks they have a talent for breaking codes to have a go at breaking the code. No shame in having ago as old crow has lost his feathers over it. So now I offering this to all those out who love trying to solve riddles.

The cipher below may or may not alludes to gold shipments or even to an assassination or even cold war intrigue.... How ever it may or may not be of any value at all?

We just do not know until the cipher is cracked....So its open to all who seek

Have fun........



Crow

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Cry Of The Eagle: History And Legends Of The Cherokee Indians And Their Buried Treasure - Grab it through Amazon!

[Mackaydon]

Crow,
Sorry, my Enigma machine is temporarily out for repairs.
Good luck,
Don...

 

[Rebel - KGC]

Gidday All

Old Crow here is all in a flap because he realizes he has zero talent for decoding ciphers. So in my bird brain confusion I am inviting all and every one who has or thinks they have a talent for breaking codes to have a go at breaking the code. No shame in having ago as old crow has lost his feathers over it. So now I offering this to all those out who love trying to solve riddles.

The cipher below may or may not alludes to gold shipments or even to an assassination or even cold war intrigue.... How ever it may or may not be of any value at all?

We just do not know until the cipher is cracked....So its open to all who seek

Have fun........

View attachment 1832916

Crow

.
Probably in Lib. language...

 

[Mackaydon]

Crow,
You might try the direct approach: Ask the Consulate's office for assistance
228 East 45th Street, 2nd Ave #602
Open ⋅ Closes 3PM · (212) 687-1025
Don..


Telephone: 212.687.1025
Fax: 212.599.3189
Don.....

 

[eman1000]

Is there a story behind this Cypher and is there better picture? Thanks

 

[Crow]

.
Probably in Lib. language...

Gidday Reb

All government records of Liberia are in English. In fact Liberia was founded by Free African slaves from the United States and became a protectorate of the United States. So government institutions was largely based on US government model.

Crow

 

[Crow]

Is there a story behind this Cypher and is there better picture? Thanks

Gidday eman1000

If you double click on the image it will get larger. As for the story behind it? It may or may not pertain to a missing shipment of gold.

The key of course is unscrambling message? It may be of importance it may not?

Crow

 

[freeman]

It says,

"I am an Liberian Prince wrongly arrested for a crime. I have 2 tons of gold and 3 chests of jewels in a Swiss bank. If you help me I will give you the gold. Please send me your name, date of birth, address and your bank account number so I can send it to you. Please send to me first $10,000 USD so I may make bail and tell my secretary to transfer the funds."

 

[Crow]

Crow,
You might try the direct approach: Ask the Consulate's office for assistance
228 East 45th Street, 2nd Ave #602
Open ⋅ Closes 3PM · (212) 687-1025
Don..


Telephone: 212.687.1025
Fax: 212.599.3189
Don.....

Hello Don

Thanks for the tip. However at this stage its probably not prudent to make the Liberians aware of this message. It belongs to old regime that got over thrown in 1980. Before the country fell into a very bloody civil war. This message was from New York to Liberia in morse code and in code in 1945.

Crow

 

[Crow]

It says,

"I am an Liberian Prince wrongly arrested for a crime. I have 2 tons of gold and 3 chests of jewels in a Swiss bank. If you help me I will give you the gold. Please send me your name, date of birth, address and your bank account number so I can send it to you. Please send to me first $10,000 USD so I may make bail and tell my secretary to transfer the funds."

Gidday Freeman

Good one.

Probably nothing exciting as that.

Crow

 

[Mudflap]

I still haven't fixed my KY-7 yet and you want the egnima back in service?..... he he

 

[Crow]

But perhaps.....

A man of your talents can crack the code?

Perhaps we can put some of that loitering to good use?

Crow

 

[eman1000]

Very cool!

So the two names mentioned are Clarke Babbit and Colonel Christie (These are in plaintext and not coded)

Clark Babbit and Company, and Colonel Lansdell K. Christie expressed an interest in exploiting the deposits - I found this the following book
Speeches by President Wm. V.S. Tubman of Liberia During His Visit to the United States, Haiti and Jamaica 1954

However I cannot find a copy to read the entire context of the situation.
**Update** - It seems the Colonel Christie had requested permission to explore some iron ore deposits and was having some difficulty getting permission. He did finally get his permission around September of 45.

I believe the key to unlocking the message may be the word "stop" which was frequently used to end a thought or sentence. If you can find a repeat of these characters you might find the pattern.

Unfortunately the scan is poor and even enlarged I am having trouble reading the characters.

 

[Crow]

Gidday eman1000

Well done! I think you might of hit the name on the head.

The US search for a diversification of its supply of strategic materials brought American steel producers to Liberia where in 1944 William Tubman had taken over from Edwin Barclay.
In 1945 a mining concession for the development of the rich Bomi Hills reserves was concluded with Lansdell K. Christie, a former US Army officer who by sheer coincidence had become familiar with Liberia. Lansdell Christie had served with the US Army in the construction of the airfield near Firestone’s Harbel plantations, Robertsfield, following the US – Liberia Defense Treaty of March 1942.

The Government of Liberia, however, by signing an agreement with Christie, had granted an important mining concession to a person who had no money to realize the investment, as will be shown below.

Lansdell Christie and the Liberia Mining Company

Christie was neither a rich businessman nor an iron ore expert, but he foresaw the possibilities which the high-grade Bomi Hill iron ore offered with respect to the US steel industry. He obtained a 80-year concession giving him exclusive exploration rights in an area of about 3 million acres, within a radius of 40 miles of the Bomi Hills, and the exclusive mining rights in respect of all minerals except gold, diamonds and platinum in a smaller area (of maximum 25,000 acres).

The Liberian Government was to be paid an exploration tax of US $ 100 per month and, after the 3 ½ year exploration period, US $ 250 per month. Further, a surface tax of initially 5 dollar cents per acre and which would gradually climb up to 25 cents, and a basic royalty of 5 cents for each ton of iron ore exported. The concessionaire became exempted from all taxes in lieu of this exploration tax, surface tax and royalty.

As Christie lacked the capital and the expertise to develop the concession he contacted the Dutch Muller Company, who accepted his offer to participate and to engage in the mining project which they had contemplated to realize ten years earlier. However, a substantial Dutch investment was prevented by the Dutch Government’s exchange restrictions, imposed at the end of the Second World War. Yet Muller’s participation in the Liberia Mining Company (LMC), the company Christie in the meantime had created, resulted in the recruitment of mainly Dutchmen for the technical and administrative positions in LMC. In 1948 LMC and Muller signed an agreement making the Dutch company the exclusive sales agent with respect to countries other than the USA and non-exclusive agent for sales in the USA.

Another problem needed to be solved before actual mining operations could begin. The transportation of the ore from the mining site to the Port made a bridge over the St. Paul river necessary. Eventually it was built as part of the Port project, which was financed with US funds (and to be repaid by the Liberian Government). Meanwhile Christie had managed to get one of the major US steel companies involved, the Republic Steel Corporation. The latter bought Muller’s shares in LMC and in the end, Republic Steel was with nearly 60% of the shares the major shareholder of LMC. It also became the non-exclusive sales agent for the sale of iron ore to buyers in the USA.

The major work left was the construction of a railroad from Bomi Hills to the Free Port of Monrovia. Eventually, the railroad was financed by the investors, who spent about US $ 10 million on it. In fact, the railroad represented their only investment in the project (apart from facilities and infrastructure at the mining site).

Clark Babbit must of been a junior partner below. He was 35 in 1945.



Colonel Lansdell K. Christie got in quick to secure mining concessions even before the World war 2 had finished....and the bullets stopped flying.



Colonel Lansdell K. Christie lived till 1965. He must of made a mint out of the deal. He even got himself on the cover of Time magazine.



Thank you it explain much that was happening at that place in time. But it was not the iron ore mining concessions it was the gold Mining concessions that was of interest to me. Here in a introduction report on Gold production dating back to prior December 1945.



Its all just part of a search for a missing gold shipment. That is why efforts have been searching through various records.
Crow.

 

[Crow]

Well Some interesting things.

While Colonel Lansdell K. Christie was still trying to get the the Iron Ore concession he was still in the military attached to the Army air force base in Monrovia. He had a company that had scows barges used in port development work. Here is picture of him in his younger days working on barges in New York aged 17. I Have his seaman protection certificate with Photo and hell even the guys finger print.....


Some it seems he had quite a few business interests in Liberia. These connections with the military and president Tubman who had gold mining interests himself.



As you can see president Tubman and his political Whig party. Had shares in a gold mining operation in Cape Palmas. So it is possible there was some arrangement to fly gold out to south Africa from Liberia. After all Colonel Lansdell K. Christie was trying to get Iron ore concession. Why not assist President Tubman ship Gold to South Africa. .

Here is monthly gold mining report



So its not inconceivable that accumulated gold was not shipped for foreign exchange? On December 4 1945 A Dakota left Robertson Field Monrovia Carrying 17 passengers and crew and vanished without trace



Interesting no?

Crow

 

[Toecutter]

Very interesting, thank you for sharing...

 

[Crow]

Very interesting, thank you for sharing...

Gidday Toecutter

Its my pleasure sharing a yarn or two. Technically I an retired but old habits die hard.

Crow

 

[Crow]

Right now the search is into the bank ledgers of the bank of Morovia Looking for transactions pertaining 4th of December 1945 gold shipment.

Crow

 

[freeman]

There are 40(?) cipher blocks so if each block was for a letter then the total message say in english could only amount to one or two sentences at best.

The code looks like and the setting suggests it is what is known as a 'commercial code' (well that's the name I know them) which is a 'word to cipher' substitution.

Each cipher block of letters represents a word as set out in a large alphabetically indexed commercial 'code book'.

To encode a complete sentence, say 'Send the gold', you look up the word 'send' and it has the cipher block JXTQA, the word 'the' KSNTU, 'gold' has ZPLOC.

( For example the book would have listed in the 'S' section something like Send: JXTQA, Sending: JXTQB, Sent: JXTQC etc)

They are impossible to break without the code book as each cipher block represents a complete word, not a letter, so code breaking algorithms based on letter frequency in a particular language cannot be used.

 

[Crow]

There are 40(?) cipher blocks so if each block was for a letter then the total message say in english could only amount to one or two sentences at best.

The code looks like and the setting suggests it is what is known as a 'commercial code' (well that's the name I know them) which is a 'word to cipher' substitution.

Each cipher block of letters represents a word as set out in a large alphabetically indexed commercial 'code book'.

To encode a complete sentence, say 'Send the gold', you look up the word 'send' and it has the cipher block JXTQA, the word 'the' KSNTU, 'gold' has ZPLOC.

( For example the book would have listed in the 'S' section something like Send: JXTQA, Sending: JXTQB, Sent: JXTQC etc)

They are impossible to break without the code book as each cipher block represents a complete word, not a letter, so code breaking algorithms based on letter frequency in a particular language cannot be used.

Gidday Freeman

Thank you for your explanation of the code. I have no reason to doubt it. The coded message however interesting and mysterious in what it says, Given the names of the person date and time of the message it is most likely a message in regards to the iron ore concessions.

I managed to get documents pertaining to the department of mines report of gold mining in Liberia. Through the libria department of treasury records. In the report the chief of mines report declares that Tubman set the Liberian gold price too low for miners to work profitably. For example the liberian price was 23 dollars per ounce of Gold USD in United States was 33 dollars per ounce. So gold production fell from 1945 fell from the 1944 figure because of the low set gold price by the Tuibman administration abd national projects was dragging labour from the gold mines because national projects such as the port abd airfield and bridge construction was paying better wages. That production fell by 30% plus and estimated 30% by illict gold being smuggled out of the country for better prices.

The Tubman administration was buying gold nearly 30% cheaper of the miners and taxing those 15% customs tax when they try to export it. So there was a massive incentive to transport gold illicitly to other countries paying nearly 30% more. There was no commercial aircraft operating in 1945 in Liberia, Pam Am started with flights in 1946. So only flights in or out of the country was via the United States Military Army air force.The export of gold and Diamonds was regulated through Customs and treasury in which permission had to be issued through the central office of the Administration.

Crow