For whatever it may or may not be worth...... I got a set of dirt cheap "Chuan Brand", used at an annual "storage unit auction". I can't tell you at all if they're "good" or not, but I can tell you for hobby use, where you don't have to send parts across the oceans to match up with somebody elses parts- They're good. They work smoothly, they repeat well and easily, and (where you can), you can "standard" them at the zero and one positions, and they agree with each other. I don't care one bit if if I'm off by ten thousandths at six inches so long as all my stuff comes out the same. (I am not out that much, or even close. I have no idea how close the absolute measurement is, and no way to qualify it, but it's not outside of two thousandths, my belief is it's less than one. Maybe dead nutz, I have no idea). The bottom line is that they're consistant, all of my measurements, and all of my math all come out right, so for hobby use, they're fine. I'm not sure that the materials are going to hold up to sixty years or more of commercial shop use on a daily basis, but as is, they work. I do need to throw a picture out though, as there are options. The ones I speak of are like this, in the wooden box and have carbide tips.
I'm not saying they're the best, or that they're anything worth admitting that I own... Just that they work for anything I'll probably ever do. They allow me to measure to tenths, although in my world it's mostly academic. I'm not above "trying" to hit or split tenths, just for the sport of it, but in practice, hitting one thousandth is more than I need.
I've also used Fouler for a lot of things at work, both "calipers" and "mics". They have never been "perfect", and don't necessarily repeat to each other, but up until the last ten years or so, they've always been "close enough", and built closer to what I'd call "workshop grade". They hold up well to being mishandled, abused, and tossed in a drawer full of other mechanic's tools. I'll put their accuracy like this- If a five inch cylinder liner is 0.002 over the reuse spec, I'll fail it off of those, and I'll be right, because it's probably three or four over, but I never have trusted these enough to "do the math" to find an absolute value. If that liner is in a range to consider it's reuse? I gotta dig out something nice, I will not use these.
The biggest question is, what do you need the calipers to do?
