One of the machines used to send coded messages between Adolf Hitler and his generals sold for £10 on eBay after being discovered in a shed in England, the buyer said Sunday.
Researchers at The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park saw a "telegram machine" for sale on the auction site for £9.50 (12.5 euros/$14), and believed it may have actually been a Lorenz machine, used by the German army to send top-secret coded messages.
"My colleague was scanning eBay and he saw a photograph of what seemed to be the teleprinter," John Wetter, a volunteer at the museum in Buckinghamshire, south England, told the BBC.
To investigate further, Wetter travelled to the south-eastern town of Southend where he found the machine, which resembles a typewriter, on the floor of a shed, covered "with rubbish".
"We said 'Thank you very much, how much was it again?' She said '£9.50', so we said 'Here's a £10 note - keep the change," he added.
The museum is now hunting for a replacement motor, which is missing.
"It looks like an electric motor in black casing with two shafts on each side, which drive the gears of the Lorenz machine," said Wetter.