The rare antique was found at a Romanian flea market for 100 euros.

Spencer Platt / Getty Images

People constellate to flea markets for bargains — but not usually of this magnitude .

After a cryptography professor found a WWII Enigma I machine for sale at aflea marketin Romania , he grease one’s palms it straightaway . After all , the person selling the simple machine had tag the World War 2 artifact as a typewriter , and only wanted 100 euro for it .

Enigma Machine

Spencer Platt / Getty Images

The prof go to betray the gaffer at the Bucharest auction house Artmark , where on Tuesday it wentfor 45,000 euro , or approximately $ 51,500 USD . Last month , another Enigma cypher machinesold for $ 547,500 USD .

Their value derive at least in part from their oddity and historical circumstances . Originally developed by German engineer Arthur Scherbius at the tail end end of WWI , Enigma I was part of a series of portable machine that used a set of rotor and character to create a cypher around a given content .

The devices were first produced as a commercial code pass water machine , but this example speedily became democratic with branches of the German United States Army — known as the Wehrmacht — in the late ’ 20s . During WWII , the Wehrmacht coded a huge number of their communication theory with the Enigma motorcar .

Enigma Machine Labeled

Karsten Sperling / Wikimedia Commons

Karsten Sperling / Wikimedia Commons

As prior knowledge of your opposer ’s moves is critical in pull ahead any war , it soon became unclouded to Allied forces that they demand to acquire a method to decode these “ unbreakable ” Enigma messages . Thus , Allied parties issue forth together in a multinational effort to crack the Enigma codification , with scientists work night and Clarence Shepard Day Jr. to find a way to decipher this cipher .

In 1939 , British logician Alan Turing make to work in grow such a vital decipherment gadget , which he call the Bombe ( derived fromBomba , the name of a similar twist which the Poles had acquire some long time prior ) .

In 1940 , Turing successfully presented his first machine , aptly named the Victory , to his match at Bletchley Park . short after , one C of these devices were make to break up Enigma code . They succeeded and some say that the devices make out the war light by up to two years .

Next , read about the giant , undetonatedWorld War 2 bomb found under a Hellenic gas post . Then , check out theGerman warplanediscovered by a 14 year old kid .