Hermes 3000 Portable Typewriter (Mid-Century)
Offered by:
Judy Johnson, Unexpected Treasures
Hermes 3000 Portable Typewriter (Mid-Century)
Starting bid $125
“Hermes 3000” typewriters were designed and made by Paillard-Bolex, Yverdo, Switzerland from 1958 into the 1980s. An early predecessor the “Hermes Baby” was the first truly portable typewriter to be put on the market, in 1932.
A “Hermes 2000”, predecessor to the “3000”, started Tom Hanks’ collection of over 3,000 typewriters in 1977, and the Hermes 3000 is the one luxury item said he would “choose to take with him.”
Author Larry McMurtry thanked his Hermes 3000 typewriter when accepting is Golden Globe for “Brokeback Mountain” saying it is “surely one of the noblest instruments of European (Swiss) genius which has kept me for 30 years off the dry embrace of the computer.’
San Francisco beat poet Jack Kerouac wrote his last novel on a Hermes 3000.
Sylvia Plath’s 1959 Hermes 3000 sold at auction in 2018 for $46,000.
Tom Hanks changing the ribbon on a Hermes 3000 on You Tube is worth a watch!
This mid-century typewriter is probably from 1970s. It is in good condition overall, but the keys stick. It will need servicing and a new ribbon. A great place
for that is:
Los Altos Typewriter
300 State St., Los Altos; 650/948-0714 ~ Owner is John