November 22, 2023, 11:55am
On December 15, Heritage Auctions will be kicking off their Historical Platinum Session Signature® Auction, which will include Steve Soboroff’s storied typewriter collection. 33 typewriters are going up for auction, including those used by writers Jack London, Tennessee Williams, George Bernard Shaw, Ray Bradbury, John Updike and Philip Roth, as well as other cultural icons like Greta Garbo, Shirley Temple, Mae West, Julie Andrews, Tom Hanks, Bing Crosby, Andrea Bocelli, Hugh Hefner, and, um, the Unabomber. Soboroff’s collecting rule was that—with the exception of the historically significant 1887 Crandall New Model—the owners of the typewriters had to have appeared on the cover of Time.
“To me, these typewriters were like Picasso’s paintbrushes,” said Soboroff in a press release. “A lot of these people swore these typewriters helped with their writing. Bocelli wrote to me on that typewriter in Braille and said it was a partner in creating his poetry. Harold Robbins’ wife told me you couldn’t get through to him when he was on that typewriter. He would become the character he was writing about. These typewriters were their partners.”
One of them can be yours next month—but in the meantime, take a peek at a few famous people’s typewriters here:
Andrea Bocelli: 1970 Perkins Brailler | Heritage Auctions, HA.com
Barbra Streisand gift to Robert Redford from the film The Way We Were: 1939 Corona | Heritage Auctions, HA.com
E. M. Forster: 1904 Oliver Standard Visible Writer No. 3 | Heritage Auctions, HA.com
Ernest Hemingway: 1926 Underwood Standard Portable | Heritage Auctions, HA.com
George Bernard Shaw: 1934 Remington Noiseless 7x | Heritage Auctions, HA.com
Greta Garbo: 1963 Olympia SM7 | Heritage Auctions, HA.com
Hugh Hefner: 1962 Royal Empress | Heritage Auctions, HA.com
Jack London: 1902 Bar Locke #10 | Heritage Auctions, HA.com
Julie Andrews: 1961 IBM Selectric with special blue keys | Heritage Auctions, HA.com
Shirley Temple: 1936 Underwood Champion Portable | Heritage Auctions, HA.com
Tennessee Williams: 1936 Corona Junior | Heritage Auctions, HA.com
Theodore Kaczynski (aka, the Unabomber): 1968 Montgomery Ward Signature Portable 440T | Heritage Auctions, HA.com
Tom Hanks: 1963 Hermes 3000 | Heritage Auctions, HA.com
1887 Crandall New Model | Heritage Auctions, HA.com
