Typewriter Fever: Bremerton Shop Tom Hanks Wrote To
There is a shop on North Callow Avenue in Bremerton’s Charleston District where more than 200 typewriters line the shelves at any given time, machines from every decade of the twentieth century, each one mechanical, analog, and entirely indifferent to software updates. It is run by a retired Washington State Ferry engineer named Don Feldman, who started collecting typewriters in 1999 on a whim and never quite stopped. And in 2020, he received a personal letter typed by Tom Hanks, one of Hollywood’s most famous typewriter collectors, thanking him for his contributions to the typewriter community.
“I get through the first sentence,” his wife Britt recalled, “and I look up and there’s Tom Hanks’s name on the top and I start screaming.”
That is the story of Typewriter Fever, and it is one of the more unexpectedly wonderful small business stories in all of Kitsap County.
It Started With a $35 Woodstock
Don Feldman’s relationship with typewriters began the way many obsessions do: with a bargain that didn’t quite pay off the way he expected. In 1999, he spotted a 1930s Woodstock typewriter at a local thrift shop, paid around $35 for it, and immediately went to look it up on eBay, certain he had found something rare and valuable. He discovered there were millions of them. Most people would have stopped there. Don did not.
Over the next two decades, working alongside his career as a ferry engineer, Don quietly accumulated a collection that grew to over 600 typewriters and adding machines. By the time he retired from Washington State Ferries in 2016, the collection had outgrown every available space. His wife Britt, a practical woman with an appreciation for both her husband’s passion and the square footage of their home, suggested he open a shop.
Typewriter Fever was born.
The Largest Selection on the West Coast
The shop at 620 North Callow Avenue maintains over 200 machines on the floor at any given time, spanning everything from early twentieth century uprights to mid-century portables to the electric models that defined office culture in the 1970s and 80s. Customers can buy, sell, or trade machines, and Don also services typewriters, the kind of hands-on mechanical tinkering with springs, platens, and ribbon mechanisms that no software update will ever replace and that very few people in the Pacific Northwest are still equipped to do properly.
The shop claims the largest typewriter selection on the West Coast, a distinction that has drawn customers not just from across Kitsap County but from across the region, collectors, writers, artists, students, and people who simply want to type something that feels permanent in a world built around screens and notifications.
The Tom Hanks Letter
Among typewriter enthusiasts, Tom Hanks is as well known for his collection as for his filmography. He has written publicly about his love of typewriters and has been a visible advocate for the mechanical typing community for years. In 2020, he typed a personal letter to Don, thanking him for his work for the typewriter community, a gesture that arrived at the shop on North Callow Avenue and caused an immediate scene when Britt read the signature.
The letter represents something beyond a celebrity anecdote. It is an acknowledgment, from one serious collector to another, that what Don has built in Bremerton matters to people who care deeply about keeping this particular craft alive.
A Bremerton Original in a Neighborhood on the Rise
Typewriter Fever sits in the Charleston District, one of Bremerton’s most historically rich and currently most vibrant neighborhoods. As covered in our feature on Tolitoz Motherland Restaurant and Vulca’s Mediterranean Market, Charleston has experienced a genuine small business renaissance in recent years, with independent shops, restaurants, and creative spaces reclaiming a neighborhood that has been the commercial heart of this part of Bremerton since the 1940s. Typewriter Fever is among its most distinctive residents.
How to Visit
Typewriter Fever is located at 620 North Callow Avenue, Bremerton, WA 98312, open Thursday through Saturday from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Appointments can also be arranged outside regular hours. The shop can be reached by phone at (360) 627-9480. More information and a selection of available machines can be found at typewriterfever.com.
Don and Britt, if you’d like to share more about current inventory, upcoming events, or anything else Kitsap locals should know about Typewriter Fever, reach out to us at TheKitsap.com/contact and we’ll update this feature with your input. This space is yours too.