An example of the Nazi’s Enigma coding machine will be sold in London next week and is already valued at £180,000 by one bidder.
Bonhams are auctioning the machine in a sale that will close next Tuesday, September 9. The AG M4 Enigma machine is expected to make between £200,000 and £300,000, and has already attracted a bid of £180,000.
The Enigma code system is one of the defining sites of conflict in WWII. The electromechanical machine took input from a keyboard, sending the letters through a series of rotors that created what the German military believed was a message that could only be uncoded with another Enigma machine with the right settings.
But the codes were broken. First in Poland. Then by the Allies more broadly, most famously at Bletchley Park, the British code-breaking facility where Alan Turing and others automated decrypting with procedures that would later be foundational in the development of computers.
The machine comes with much of its original kit, including this manual with a set of codes to be used manually if Enigma was out of action. Image courtesy of Bonhams.
The Enigma machines were like gold dust for codebreakers. And now they have a similar cachet with collectors.
This example was made in 1944 and is an Olympia Büromaschinenwerke AG M4 Enigma machine. Serial numbers match the machine with its parts – the rotors, and reflector. The M4 machine was quite a breakthrough for the Germans, and it took the Allies nine months to break its secrets.
This one is also in very good condition. Among the extras included with the machine are a set of backup hand codes for May 1945, that show the machine was ready for action as the German war machine collapsed.
The machines were marvels of manufacturing precision – delicate and complex for military gear. And they were precious. Just as the Allies were desperate to find them, the Germans were equally set on keeping them away from them. Many were destroyed.
Bonhams say there are only 80 M4 machines known. Many are in museum and national collections.
Those Enigma machines that do come to the collecting market can make major prices.
In 2019, an M4 from 1942 made $800,000 at a New York auction. Machines commonly sell for hundreds of thousands of pounds.
The strong early bidding for this machine, in such good condition, seems likely to continue through to the sale to set a significant milestone for Enigma machines.
