Enigma machine sells for world record

London (CNN) -- An Enigma machine which featured in a Hollywood
movie about the codebreakers of World War II has smashed auction
estimates and sold for a world record price.
The encoding device sparked a three-way bidding war when it went
under the hammer at Christie's in London Thursday, selling for
£133,250 ($208,137) -- more than double the upper estimate of
£50,000.
Christie's said the previous record for an Enigma machine was
£67,250, at the same auction house, in November 2010.
Vitally important to the Nazi war machine, the Enigma machine was
used by the German military to encrypt messages into a form they
believed was unbreakable.
However, the code was cracked by a team of cryptologists at
Bletchley Park in southern England -- a breakthrough widely credited
with having shortened the war by at least two years.