BOSTON — Auction of Secret Message Archive Nears $1 Million
Information needed to decode a lingering secret message in a sculpture at CIA headquarters has fetched nearly $1 million at auction, as announced by the auction house on Friday.
The successful bidder plans to meet privately with the 80-year-old artist to examine his codes and charts, continuing a long-standing effort to bond with budding code-breakers.
Jim Sanborn, the creator of the Kryptos sculpture, sold an archive containing important documentation and coding charts for around $963,000. This sculpture, which was unveiled in 1990, has intrigued many.
Though three of the messages on the 10-foot sculpture—designated K1, K2, and K3—have been cracked, the fourth one, K-4, remains elusive, frustrating both experts and enthusiasts trying to decode the S-shaped copper structure.
The artwork features a design reminiscent of paper emerging from a fax machine. On one side are staggered alphabets that serve as keys for decrypting the messages found on the opposite side.
One individual has reached out to Sanborn regularly for the past two decades in hopes of deciphering K4. With numerous inquiries coming in, Sanborn eventually started charging $50 for each submission. Ultimately, he sold the solution to K4, aiming for someone who would safeguard its secrets while engaging with his followers.
According to RR Auctions, the winning bidder will discuss K4’s code, charts, and the artistic vision behind it with Sanborn, who also refers to an alternate paragraph known as K5.
The auction house is currently developing a “long-term management plan” for the buyer.
Sanborn has created approximately 50 public sculptures, including a memorial honoring the victims of a mass shooting in Odessa, Texas, in 2019.
In September, two Kryptos enthusiasts stumbled upon Sanborn’s original scrambled text within his papers at the Smithsonian, nearly derailing the auction of the archive.
The auction proceeded, but shifted from selling just K4 secrets to offering the whole archive instead.
Sanborn remarked, “The key difference is that they discovered it. They didn’t decipher it. They don’t have the key. They don’t have a way to crack it.”
