> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://lichfieldlive.co.uk/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Auction sees Alan Turing papers sell for more than £465,000 - URL: https://lichfieldlive.co.uk/lichfield-auction-sees-alan-turing-papers-sell-for-more-than-465000/ - Published: 2025-06-17T14:49:24.000Z - Updated: 2025-06-17T20:49:07.000Z - Description: An auction has seen scientific papers by Alan Turing sell for more than £465,000. - Author: Lichfield Live - Tags: #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-07-22 18:49, News AN auction has seen scientific papers by Alan Turing sell for more than £465,000. The sale by Lichfield-based Rare Book Auctions came after they had been almost shredded after being discovered in a plastic carrier bag. The collection, which had been stashed away in a loft for decades, was sold by the family of Norman Routledge – a mathematician and long-time friend of the famed World War Two code-breaker. They had been gifted to him by Turing’s mother, Ethel, and included rare academic prints. Items sold included Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals, which went for £110,500, while a copy of On Computable Numbers went for £208,000, smashing the auction estimate of £40,000 to £60,000. Jim Spencer, director of Rare Book Auctions, said: > “Nothing could’ve prepared me for what I found in that carrier bag. These plain, academic papers were absolutely electrifying – they are the very bedrock of modern computing.” Other items in the sale included Turing’s final major work, The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis, which fetched £19,500 and a copy of The Word Problem in Semi-Groups with Cancellation which sold for £28,600. Jim added: > “This was the most important archive I’ve ever handled. The papers came within inches of being destroyed, but instead they’ve captured the world’s imagination. > > “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime discovery – not just for collectors, but for the sake of preserving the story of one of the greatest minds in history.”