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Phrase · Metal plate
I stored my phrase on a metal plate and letters are missing
Metal plates are a good idea and most of the problems they cause are fixable. The most common one isn’t destruction: it’s pieces falling out, getting swapped, or the owner discovering they only stored part of each word and assuming that’s useless. It isn’t.
Four letters are a whole word
Many plates, especially the loose-letter kind, only have room for four characters per word. That is not a limitation: it is deliberate. The 2048 words on the list were chosen so that no two share their first four letters. If your plate says «abst», only one word is possible.
So if your plate is complete even with only four letters per word, your phrase is complete. You can rebuild it yourself by consulting the public word list.
If pieces are missing
| What’s missing | Outlook |
|---|---|
| One letter of one word | Almost always deducible: few options |
| A whole word | A good case: few possible phrases |
| Two whole words | Workable |
| Several letters scattered around | Usually solvable: each remaining letter narrows a lot |
| The order of the rows is unknown | Depends how many rows you are unsure about |
Before touching the plate
- Photograph it exactly as it is, in good light, before moving anything. If more pieces fall out later, that photo is your copy.
- Don’t shake it or clean it with products: if there are loose pieces inside, they can be lost for good.
- Write down what is legible on paper, including the gaps as gaps.
- Look inside the box, sleeve or envelope you kept it in: fallen pieces are usually there.
That photo of the plate is your recovery phrase. Treat it as such: don’t upload it to the cloud, don’t send it by chat, and delete it from your phone as soon as you no longer need it. It is worth exactly as much as the metal.
If the plate survived a fire or a flood, don’t write the letters off at a glance. Stamped steel keeps the relief even when blackened: careful cleaning and raking light usually bring the full reading back.