Historic Typewriters Used by Literary Giants and Celebrities Up for Auction

Soboroff—who retired as president of the LAPD Board of Commissioners in August after a decade on the job—began his collection on a whim at an auction in 2005, when he outbid the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Dodgers for the 1940 Remington Model J used by Pulitzer-winning Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray. 

That typewriter was followed by others used by literary titans Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, and Philip Roth, and actors Greta Garbo, Shirley Temple, Mae West, Julie Andrews, and Tom Hanks. Musicians also feature, including Bing Crosby and Andrea Bocelli, as do notables such as Samuel T. Cohen (inventor of the neutron bomb) and Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber.

“They’re incredible conversation pieces, one-of-a-kind works of art that created one-of-a-kind works. The people who owned them give credit to the typewriters for being their partners in whatever they did—both Andrea Bocelli and Harold Robbins said that,” Soboroff tells Penta.

Soboroff, who likens the typewriters to Pablo Picasso’s paintbrushes and carefully verified each one to ensure its authenticity, followed only one rule as he filled out his collection—the typewriters had to belong to people who appeared on the cover of Time magazine 

The only one that breaks the rule is the 1887 Crandall New Model, which was bought because of its historical significance—most notably its vertical typesleeve and curved, two-row keyboard—and condition, which Soboroff claims is the finest of any Crandall in the world.

Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 Underwood Standard, which the author used to write letters from his Cuban estate Finca Vigía—some 2,500 of which are stored at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Museum Library and Museum—is a personal favorite of Soboroff’s. 

“Hemingway had seven typewriters in his life, six of which are now in museums. But his last words were essentially written on this typewriter. This is a treasure of the world,” he says.

Film buffs can bid on the 1939 Corona Standard typewriter that Barbra Streisand’s character gifts to Robert Redford’s writer in 1973’s The Way We Were, and collectors will appreciate the opportunity to own rarely seen models such as Jack London’s 1902 Bar-Lock #10, which has separate keys for lower and upper case letters, no exclamation point, and a ‘2WBMRN’ layout rather than the conventional ‘QWERTY.’ 

The collection has been exhibited in various institutions including the Paley Center for Media in Los Angeles, where a scheduled four-week stint was extended to run beyond 14 months. During these exhibits, Soboroff noticed how attendees of all backgrounds ended up gravitating towards these historic devices. 

“People lined up around the block–they couldn’t believe they were standing with those typewriters. They have so much aura to them,” he says. “Take Hugh Hefner’s 1962 Royal Empress—the sexual revolution happened at that typewriter.” 

Last year Soboroff donated six of his typewriters that had been appraised at an average of US$251,000 each—previously owned by Maya Angelou, Joe DiMaggio, Elia Kazan, John Lennon, Jerome ‘Jerry’ Siegel (co-creator of Superman), and Orson Welles—to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. 

The remaining 33 will serve as the centerpieces of next month’s auction, of which a portion of the proceeds will go towards one of Soboroff’s favorite nonprofits, the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, which funds scholarships for undergraduate journalism students.

Specializing in finance, insurance, and real estate, Soboroff, 75, formerly served as managing partner of Soboroff Partners, a shopping center development and leasing company, before entering into civic duty.