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For sale: an Enigma machine

christies.com

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Re: For sale: an Enigma machine

#2

Post by user24 »

I hope a museum gets it, but I think it will probably go for much more than the estimate.

By the way, any UK HNers should definitely try to get down to the museum at Bletchley park and the national computing museum. Geek heaven :)

edit: wow, they also have the first published ENIAC patents: http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot_details.aspx?from=sal...

Re: For sale: an Enigma machine

#4

Post by user24 »

tomjen3 wrote: post #3

30-50k pounds. Shit thats a high price.

You think? I wouldn't have been surprised to see it fetch twice the high estimate. It's got appeal to people interested in:

Computing

Codes/Ciphers

WW2

That's pretty broad appeal. I mean even if it was only of interest to Turing fans that's still a huge market, and Turing fans are only a small subset of those larger markets.

Just my opinion, I've no idea if these things come up fairly often or not.

Re: For sale: an Enigma machine

#5

Post by tomjen3 »

user24 wrote: post #4
tomjen3 wrote: post #3

30-50k pounds. Shit thats a high price.

You think? I wouldn't have been surprised to see it fetch twice the high estimate. It's got appeal to people interested in: Computing Codes/Ciphers WW2 That's pretty broad appeal. I mean even if it was only of interest to Turing fans that's still a huge market, and Turing fans are only a small subset of those larger markets. Just my opinion, I've no idea if these things come up fairly often or not.

It may still fetch more, but honestly that doesn't change that it is a very large amount of money.

Re: For sale: an Enigma machine

#6

Post by Robin_Message »

Also, the next lot is even more exciting: Some offprints of Turing's papers and manuscripts, formed by Prof. Maxwell Newman, guide price 300 to 500 thousand pounds! Apparently these are extremely rare; none have appeared in auction for 35 years!

http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot_details.aspx?from=sal...

Re: For sale: an Enigma machine

#8

Post by pbhjpbhj »

I was interested in the many manuscripts in that sale. I wonder if Google would buy them, scan them and resell them ... they could buy through a third party/anonymous bid and only release the scanned copy after the resale to avoid a negative effect on price.
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