Starrett is WAY overrated and overpriced. Mitutoyo is awesome but costly. Ive use cheap polish and chinese mics and they were surprisingly decent. Dont get hung up on brown & sharpe either, been bought and resold and just a name. The peacock line of calipers and indicators are (at least were) reasonably priced and decent quality for what you wanna do. The "best" stuff will cost you.