But after an eagle-eyed volunteer with the National Museum of Computing (NMC) spotted an ad on eBay this week, the extremely rare, military-issue Lorenz teleprinter has been saved and provides the latest piece in international efforts to rebuild Hitler’s complete encoding device. It was just such a coincidence that led to the museum getting its hands on their Lorenz teleprinter, after they spotted it for sale. Image copyright National Museum of Computing Image caption Volunteer John Watson (right) shows the Lorenz machine to Bill Tutte, nephew of the wartime codebreaker of the same name 
 
 "My colleague was scanning eBay and he saw a photograph of what seemed to be the teleprinter," said John Wetter, a volunteer at the museum. He then went to Southend to investigate further where he found the keyboard being kept, in its original case, on the floor of a shed "with rubbish all over it". She said '£9.50', so we said 'Here's a £10 note - keep the change!'" Image copyright National Museum of Computing Image caption Betty O’Connell (pictured left) and Irene Dixon were both Wrens who worked at Bletchley Park trying to crack the codes of the Lorenz machine 
 
 Volunteers are hoping to recreate the whole process on Friday 3 June, from typing a message in German to cracking the code using wartime equipment.
– You never know what you’ll find on eBay. Case in point: A volunteer with the UK’s National Museum of Computing spotted a rare machine used by the Nazis to send encrypted messages during WWII on the auction site, the Guardian reports. Listed as a “telegram machine,” the military-issue Lorenz teleprinter was being stored in a garden shed “with rubbish all over it” in Essex, museum volunteer John Wetter tells the BBC. The museum bought the machine for about $15. Initially, museum volunteers thought they had discovered a civilian version of the teleprinter. But later they realized it was a military-issue machine upon discovering a swastika and military serial number, according to the Telegraph. "Everybody knows about Enigma,” the museum’s Andy Clark tells the BBC, referring to the machine used by Nazis to send communications to frontline troops. “But the Lorenz machine was used for strategic communications.” The Lorenz also produced a more complex code than the Enigma, per the Guardian. But mathematician Bill Tutte was able to break it, leading to the creation of the first programmable computer, Colossus, that could translate messages sent via the Lorenz. “We were able to drip-feed the Russians the locations of the German tank divisions of Kursk,” Wetter tells the Telegraph, adding that it was the “turning point of the war.” On June 3, the National Museum of Computing plans to recreate the breaking of the Lorenz cipher code using the teleprinter and a Lorenz cipher unit on loan from Norway’s Armed Forces Museum. But there is still one more missing component: the electric motor, which the museum is asking the public to keep an eye out for. (This man believes a $500 million treasure is hidden in a Nazi bunker.)