
Jon Baddeley
Specialist Consultant Collectors, Science & Marine
Sold for £7,012.50 inc. premium
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First deployed in 1947, the NEMA cipher machine shared numerous features with the commercial Enigma, including the lack of a plugboard. In contrast, the NEMA utilised 5 rotors for enciphering the alphabet, and an additional 5 paired rotors which give irregular stepping of the rotors. This configuration resolved a major vulnerability of the odometer-style stepping of the Enigma machine. The present machine is understood to have once been kept in war-reserve storage in the event of conflict.