PORTLAND, Ore. — After a motorcycle accident forced Antony Valoppi to change careers from running a culinary school and working as a hotel consultant, he opened a typewriter shop in Southeast Portland in 2021. His store, called Type Space, now features a unique gift from Tom Hanks’ personal typewriter collection.
“I mean, it’s from two angles,” Valoppi explained to KOIN 6 News about his passion for typewriters. “We’ve got the mechanical side of it, the tech in me that likes to tinker and repair… but then there’s the words you can produce with it. At the end of the day, that’s what they’re here for.”
Two years after opening Type Space, Valoppi had the chance to share his love for typewriters with an Oscar-winning star: Tom Hanks.
Hanks was in Portland on a book tour for his novel, “The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece.” Valoppi shared how the encounter came about:
“His manager got a hold of me the night before and just asked if they could stop by. They were on a book tour coming through Portland, so I said, ‘Yeah, of course, I’ll close the shop if you like,’ and they said, ‘No, no, no, don’t worry about that.’”
“Sure enough, he came down the next day, and him and his assistant came in and hung out for about an hour,” Valoppi recalled. “We talked about typewriters.”
Valoppi has been a fan of Hanks since his role in the TV show “Bosom Buddies.” But instead of watching the actor on screen, Valoppi had the chance to see him walk into his shop.
“He came out of the truck and just walked directly up to me, hand out, and said, ‘Hey Tony, I’m Tom.’ And I thought, ‘How curious, you still need to introduce yourself,’” Valoppi said.
In an Instagram post celebrating the visit, Valoppi wrote, “We had such a great time when he visited the shop, geeking out over platen knobs, escapements, and all the glorious quirks of these machines.”
Before leaving, Hanks told Valoppi, “I’m going to send you a typewriter out of my personal collection. I’ll sign it.”
“But then two years transpired and it slipped my mind,” Valoppi explained. “I had to reach out to Allison about something, his assistant, and as we were talking, she just said, ‘Oh, we never sent that typewriter, did we?’ and she said, ‘I’m on it, I’m on it.’”
“Sure enough, two days later, it got delivered,” Valoppi said, telling KOIN 6 he received the package September 11, 2025, from Hanks’ production company, Playtone.
“He was on a book tour, he was finishing up his last few stops and he was out to the Cannes Film Festival in France, so he was stacked with a lot of things,” Valoppi said. “So, I’m sure it slipped his mind.”
Valoppi recalled the thoughts racing through his mind before opening the package, “the anticipation looking at the box, wondering, ‘What machine is it? Which one did he choose?’ I love that just-before-opening-something feeling.”
Valoppi opened the package at home with his family, revealing a 1955 Rhinemetall German typewriter complete with Hanks’ signature scribbled in gold pen on top of the machine.
The Rhinemetal has a different keyboard compared to standard “QWERTY” models commonly seen on keyboards, Valoppi told KOIN 6. Instead, the Rhinemetal features a “QWERTZ” model, as the letter “z” is more commonly used in German.
“I need to send a message to them and ask, ‘Why did you choose this machine?’ because he knew it would be more of a stationary object for viewing and playing with it than the ones he has sent other people – they’re going to write on it probably a little more. So, me receiving it with a different keyboard is perfectly fine and I actually enjoy it,” Valoppi said.
“It’s humbling,” Valoppi says of receiving a typewriter from Hanks. “It makes me grateful that, even with a reminder, they still wanted to send the shop a machine. I’m grateful that they appreciate what we’re doing. We’re geeks in the same realm.”
Valoppi is keeping the typewriter on display in the store, explaining that “people are surprised (I’m) letting them type on it as well… I just ask them not to put your hands where the signature is on there and so they get to write something on Tom Hanks’ typewriter and take it home or send it to a loved one.”
“Come by and share in the fun,” Valoppi encouraged his shop customers in an Instagram post. “Because it isn’t every day you get to say, ‘Yeah, Tom Hanks sent me a typewriter.’”
