An old typewriter picked up for 100 euros at a Romanian flea market has gone under the hammer for £44,000, after it was discovered to be a Nazi-era Enigma machine.

The machine, which was used by senior Nazi officers to carry coded military messages during the war, was spotted by a cryptography professor as he rifled through the market's bric-a-brac.

Auctioneers in Bucharest said the crafty professor knew it was no ordinary typewriter, but this did not stop him from paying the original owner just 100 euros to part ways with it.

He then took the German Wehrmacht Enigma 1 to Artmark, an auctioning house in Bucharest, which sold the piece to an anonymous buyer who had placed an online bid of 45,000 euros.