Security News > 2021 > February > Soviet 'Enigma' cipher machine sells for $22k at collapsed museum's exhibits auction

A Soviet equivalent of Nazi Germany's Enigma cipher machine has sold for more than double its auction asking price - while a secret camera disguised as a pack of cigarettes went for nearly $20,000.

A Fialka M-125-3M 10-rotor cipher code machine complete with accessories sold for $22,400 at a US auction held over the weekend, trumping the device's $8,000-$12,000 estimated sale price.

Based in New York, the museum collected and catalogued historical items relating to the Soviet spy force, the KGB, and other items - until the coronavirus pandemic killed it off in October 2020, barely a year after it first opened.

Introduced in 1956, as related by the Crypto Museum, the Fialka was an electromechanical cipher machine which followed the same basic principles as Nazi Germany's infamous Enigma device.

The US Smithsonian Museum poured scorn on its short-lived Soviet-themed rival.

An article in its in-house magazine lamented how the museum seemingly omitted the hate-filled brutality of 20th century Russia in favour of Instagrammable, interactive exhibits with less context and labelling than an academic historian might have enjoyed.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2021/02/17/soviet_spy_gadgets_museum_auction/