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Hagelin Pin-wheel C-446 → C-443 → ← C-36
Pin-and-lug cipher machine
- wanted item
C-37 is a pin-and-lug or pin-wheel cipher machine, developed around
1937 by AB Cryptoteknik in Stockholm (Sweden).
It was a special version of the C-36 that was developed to meet the
requirements of a French customer. It has several features that are not found
on other models.
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Like the C-36, it has five cipher wheels and a cage with
fixed lugs on the bars.
The machine is somewhat wider than the C-36 and has
a bit more space internally.
Both the character selector at the left and the print wheel (inside)
are different from all other Hagelin C-machines.
The character selector is engraved with the 26 letters of the Latin
alphabet (A-Z) plug a bigram to the left of each letter
(NI, NO, NU, PI, PO, etc.).
The purpose of these bigrams is currently unknown.
The machine needs to separate paper strips: one for cleartext and
one for ciphertext.
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This is similar to the later C-443 and C-446.
The printwheel consists of 4 letter rings that are not evenly spaced.
The purpose of this is currently unclear. It is likely that a
limited number of C-37 machines was manufactured.
The image on the right shows one of the few surviving units from the internal
collection of the British intelligence service GCHQ.
It was demonstrated to the public at the
Enigma Reunion
at Bletchley Park in 2009.
Images have been kindly provided by GCHQ [1].
The machine shown here has French text on its cover and was made for the
French market — probably the French Navy — by
L.M. Ericsson (the telephone company)
in Colombes, just north of Paris, under licence of
the Hagelin Company.
A few years earlier, L.M. Ericsson
had been licenced to produce Hagelin's first
cipher machine — the B-21 — for its South American subsidaries.
The C-37 was not only used by the French Navy, but also by French-British
liaisons, which is likely the reason for its presence in the GCHQ collection.
At present, no further information about the Hagelin C-37 is available.
If you know more about this device, please let us know.
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Device Portable mechanical cipher machine Class Pin-and-lug (pin-wheel) Inventor Boris Hagelin Manufacturer L.M. Ericsson Model C-37 Year 1937 ~ Country France Predecessor C-36 Successor none Pin-wheels 5 Segments unknown Lock Cross, or cylinder Operation Lever Lugs Fixed Colour Black Dimensions ? Weight ? Quantity ?
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- GCHQ, Photographs of Hagelin C-37 shown on this page
November 2012. Crown Copyright. 1
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Reproduced here by kind permission of Director GCHQ.
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© Crypto Museum. Created: Monday 05 November 2012. Last changed: Monday, 15 January 2024 - 16:56 CET.
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