Tom, There are several variations of Rosicrucian/Freemason/Pigpen cipher. The traditional version uses a tic tac toe pattern with an x pattern as shown in the link that Dean provided. However another version uses strictly a tic tac toe pattern with 3 letters per unit with the exception of one space that has only 2 letters. The letters are defined by several different ways, one being first letter is just the symbol, 2nd 1 dot, 3rd 2 dots. Or the left letter just the symbol,middle letter 2 dots, right letter 1 dot. And to really mess it up, the letters could be placed in any order in the grid. It works, as long as the person that is to recieve the message has the decipher code. As to the fact that the wheels are not all the same, that’s true, actually each wheel has only 24 characters. However this lock wouldn’t be used for passing secret messages, but it probably spelled out some word 6 letters long that was important to the local lodge, and only they knew the key to the cipher. Or it may not even spell out a word at all and may have been an acronym. Another possibility is the word or acronym could be in German, as the origional owner was a German immigrant. Either way, I still find it an interesting lock and I do have the combo to open it, but so far I haven’t been able to make any words out of it in the traditional layout. Mark
