A British collectibles dealer is selling a typewriter owned and used by John Lennon.
Paul Fraser Collectibles list the 1960s-made Smith-Corona Electra 120 machine for sale with rock-solid provenance.
It was owned by Irwin and Clarine Pate.
The couple are well known music memorabilia collectors thanks to Irwin’s role on James Brown’s staff.
That bought them into contact with the biggest names of the 60s and 70s music scene.
They knew Lennon when he moved to New York in the early 1970s and got the typewriter through a friend. It is being sold with a letter from Clarine Pate that tells its story.
Lennon typing around 1968. He was pictured using or playing around with typewriters throughout his career.
Lennon often wrote on a typewriter.
His first machine was a 1932 Imperial Model T that he used at his Aunt Mimi’s house, where he spent most of his childhood.
That machine is now in the Smithsonian.
Though he wrote songs, poems and more on the machines, Lennon didn’t learn to type with any great speed or skill until 1973.
As Paul Fraser, Chairman of Paul Fraser Collectibles, explains:
“This was the period in which Lennon owned this typewriter, and it’s a joy to picture him happily click-clacking away on these keys.”
A letter tells the story of the machine. Image courtesy of Paul Fraser Collectibles.
Lennon himself loved typewriters, and once he’d mastered them was a keen correspondent.
“As you can see. I’m learning to type. You are receiving a letter. I am writing it. That makes two of us,” he wrote in that period, adding: “I wonder if one has Freudian slips on a typewriter?”
Mr Fraser expects to quickly find a buyer for the typewriter.
He said: “We live in a world where John Lennon’s guitars are valued in the millions.
“Every year the market for his memorabilia grows, driven by the passion of fans and collectors of all ages around the world.”
“Even instruments he played just once or twice in his life now sell for upwards of $50,000.
“In 2024 his Hootenanny acoustic guitar, used during the recording of Help! and Rubber Soul, sold for a world record $2.9 million.
“The auction house described it as ‘a conduit for Lennon’s creativity, a vessel for his emotions, and a tangible connection to the heart of one of music’s most influential figures.’
“You could say exactly the same thing about this typewriter.”
The Lennon typewriter is listed on the Paul Fraser Collectibles website now.
