HAGELIN CX-52 CIPHER MACHINE
Type D, Switzerland, Crypto AG, 1950s, no 33454, being a mechanical pin-and-lug cipher machine with 6 interchangeable cipher wheels, gray-green metal casing, 'Hagelin-Cryptos' metal label to top cover, metal tag to right side of base bearing serial number and with original Zeiss Ikon key with matching number.

The CX-52 was one of the more complex portable cipher machines of the time. The National Security Agency (NSA) produced a 1954 report that stated: 'Any CX-52 traffic that appears will tax our present facilities severely. It will require more complicated, faster programs; and most of the present special-purpose equipment will not be applicable.'
Documents released in 2015 reveal that Crypto AG's founder Boris Hagelin and US government cryptographer William Friedman, then with the NSA, had entered into an agreement whereby Hagelin would keep both the NSA and the UK's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) informed about technical specifications of the various machines and to which countries they were being sold. The NSA was responsible for writing the manuals that accompanied some of the CX-52 machines sold so that the full complexity would not be utilized.