Tom Hanks, world's most famous typewriter fan, gives vintage machine to Lacey man

LACEY - The package arrived via FedEx in mid-April, and 40-year-old Ian McAndrew opened it with the enthusiasm and anticipation of a kid on Christmas morning.

Out came a 1934 Underwood portable typewriter, hunter green with four rows of keys — and fully functional. It was accompanied by a typed note.

Tom Hanks here.

I am presenting you with this typewriter. Do with it as you please. Service it, keep as is, repair and keep or sell. Display or use.

On one hand you are taking off my shelves and out in the greater world. On the other hand, you are giving me more space and less clutter. On the third hand (?) you just may be giving this miracle of a machine a fuller, newer life of use.

I do hope this typewriter comes into use. It is yours now. Take good care of it and help it keep doing its job for another hundred years.

Hanks didn’t just sign the note. The famed actor and typewriter enthusiast signed the machine itself.

“I was absolutely amazed,” McAndrew said. “It’s a thing of beauty.”

Its arrival wasn’t a total surprise. After losing his restaurant business during the shutdown phase of the pandemic, McAndrew turned his affinity for typewriters into a full-blown pursuit. Through his nascent side business, Iron Fox Typewriters, he’s helped form a scattered coalition of like-minded hobbyists who preserve, refurbish and repair these antiques that were once so essential to society. Hanks caught wind of their work and started sending them typewriters from his collection as a thank-you gesture.

At first, folks in the coalition were wildly suspicious.

“People were getting phone calls or emails: ‘I work for Tom Hanks and he wants to send you a typewriter. Can you please confirm your mailing address?’” McAndrew said. “My first thought was, ‘It’s the Nigerian prince scam for typewriter nerds.’”

But this was legit — and spectacular.

Not the only one: This Massachusetts store has experienced a media frenzy over a Tom Hanks typewriter

A public experiment

McAndrew owned a restaurant in Brick and a food truck until the pandemic wiped them out in 2020. He’d been collecting typewriters on the side since making a $50 impulse purchase of a 1964 Smith Corona Corsair Deluxe in 2016.

“It always seemed like a kooky, far-out idea,” the father of three said. “I threw myself headlong into it, and it took on a life of its own.”

Personal visit: Tom Hanks makes dreams come true for fellow manual typewriter enthusiast in Tennessee

McAndrew actually had some real-world experience working a typewriter, filling in blanks on ID cards as part of a previous job with the East Windsor police department.

“There’s something electrifying that happens when you push one of the keys and you hear that gunfire-crack of the key hitting,” he said. “People are like, ‘Oh my God, it actually makes that sound.’ Well, wait until you actually get rocking and rolling with it.”

To help share the gospel, McAndrew started what he calls “the public typewriter project.” He’s loaned machines from his collection — which numbers over 70 — to some restaurants, bookstores and libraries throughout Monmouth and Ocean counties for public display and use. He even supplies the typing paper.

Watch: Tom Hanks crashes a couple's wedding photo shoot

There’s one in The Union Market café in Tuckerton.

“Someone is poking at that thing at least once a day,” said Chris Rockwell, who books events there. “When we have poetry or music events, writers will come and they’re always on it. A lot of them are younger, so this is obsolete technology to them. They think it’s cool and they’re very curious.”

Rockwell, who owns a typewriter, gets a kick out of the encounters.

“They usually don’t know what they’re doing, which is part of the fun,” he said. “They leave the poems and stuff they write — they stick it to the board (a bulletin board in the cafe).”

Other project typewriters that get used regularly reside at Cats Luck vegan takeout in Asbury Park and Tuckerton Seaport Museum, the latter of which is a popular destination for class trips.

McAndrew has his own museum of sorts — a converted food truck in the driveway of his Lacey home. That’s where the magic happens.

History in your hands: Mill House Antiques in Long Branch is really a time machine

'It's not just eye candy'

Jay Axelbank was an international correspondent for Newsweek and the only western journalist to interview Soviet dissident and Nobel Peace Prize winner Andrei Sakharov. Axelbank’s 1963 Olympic DeLuxe is part of McAndrew’s collection, having been donated by the late reporter’s wife.

It’s one of many goodies in the food truck/museum/studio in his driveway. There’s an ever-popular Hermes 3000 from Switzerland, a model beloved by Ernest Hemingway, colored light green with large white “marshmallow” keys. There’s a 1961 Remington Torpedo from West Germany that McAndrew uses regularly because it “snaps” so crisply. There’s a 1929 Corona folding typewriter, complete with a compact traveling case. It literally folds up.

“This was the earliest reporter-style typewriter because it was so portable,” McAndrew explained.

Ghost Town: Asbury Park vintage shop is a place where the past never dies

Some of the machines of his shelves have been sent to him for servicing by fellow enthusiasts and collectors. He’s become an expert at locating parts — sometimes leaning on coalition members in other countries — and does painting as well as fixing.

The machine Hanks sent him needed no fixing.

“This thing was an absolute gem coming out of box,” McAndrew said. “It’s one thing to be beautiful; it’s another thing to be fully functional. It’s not just eye candy, which is pretty neat.”

The message from Hanks is the ultimate affirmation: Keep doing what you’re doing — keeping history alive.

“While this thing will probably never be worth millions, the sentimental value is through the roof,” McAndrew said. “I hope my kids will someday look at it and say, ‘This is something borne of hard work.’”

Anyone interested in public display partnerships, donating a typewriter, getting one serviced, or helping McAndrew’s cause can learn more at www.ironfoxtypewriters.com, on Instagram at www.instagram.com/ironfoxtypewriters or by emailing theironfoxtypingmachines@gmail.com.

Jerry Carino is community columnist for the Asbury Park Press, focusing on the Jersey Shore’s interesting people, inspiring stories and pressing issues. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Tom Hanks gives vintage Underwood typewriter to Lacey NJ man