Hey, there. That depends on an important factor: do you want to collect typewriters to use them, or just to have a display piece? If the latter, then you're looking for the varied early machines. Before the early 1900's they came in all sorts of styles, some of which are extremely collectible. The Sholes and Glidden comes to mind. If you mean the former, that answer is a bit more nuanced...

Here is a pair I bought recently. The one one the left is a Brother Opus 210 I bought for my daughter (who lovingly calls it either her "computer" or her "type-uh-writer") to distract her from daddy's typewriter, which is on the right: A 1959 Erika 10.



Both are fully functional. The Brother's paint was coming off in spots, so my wife repainted it. The seller took the German QWERTZ keyboard and graciously converted it to a QWERTY. I put pink nail polish over the tab key because I kept confusing it for the backspace--not a fun way to be woken from the concentration of writing. 

colrehogan wrote:

tricnomistal wrote:

Is that the one with a double keyboard?

Yes, it is.  
 

Wow. Interesting machine. I bet repairmen woke in cold sweat from nightmares of that nest of typebars and linkages...

Well, two weeks and one day after she was shipped, my Erika 10 arrived in the mail. Limited first impressions have been excellent. I'll post about her (and another less exciting machine) on the recent acquisitions thread once I've had a chance to really play with her. 

All in all not a terribly long wait. Doesn't mean I wasn't terribly impatient though...

The best I've come up with is that it was someone's really poorly-considered design that somehow made it to production.