You can now buy Hemingway's prized typewriter for $ 250,000
Soboroff, who bought the New York Yankees Hall of Famer's typewriter in 2011, found the little pieces underneath the keys while cleaning it.
Soboroff also unearthed childhood photos of Ernest Hemingway in the writer's 1926 Underwood Standard Portable. But greatest discovery with these machines — and others, including typewriters belonging to Maya Angelou, Tennessee Williams, John Lennon and Shirley Temple — was a historical connection to great people.
«These are really hard for me to give up,» Soboroff said on a video call last week.
After 20 years of assembling what may be the greatest typewriter collection in the world, Soboroff is putting all 33 of his beloved machines up for auction.
Owning them has been a privilege, he says, and each comes with a unique back story that helped fuel Soboroff's passion.
Like when Soboroff backed out of a deal with actress Angelina Jolie, refusing to part with Hemingway's typewriter after she agreed to pay $250,000 for it. While reports at the time indicated Jolie was the one to walk away, Soboroff said he canceled the transaction when he learned that she intended to give the machine to her husband, Brad Pitt, for him to use.
Soboroff might have allowed Pitt to bang away on Harold Robbins' or Mae West's machines, he said, but Hemingway's typewriter was sacred.
«At that time, I could have used the money,» Soboroff said. «But nobody's touching that one.
Ernest Hemingway's typewriter? No chance.»
Now someone else will get the chance to own it, because after two decades bearing the responsibility of protecting, insuring, exhibiting and shipping the typewriters all over the country to promote their legacies, Soboroff, 75, no longer has the energy for it. And he could still use the
