Digital Vernier Callipers - advice please

[Mr Sprue]

I would like to get my husband some digital vernier callipers for his birthday, my son has 'borrowed' his old set. I thought they would make a good practical present that I could borrow occasionally to check back to backs.

After looking on the internet and on eBay I'm now completely confused  by the sheer range in prices anything from £2 up to £800!

What should I be looking out for and what would be a reasonable price to pay for them? My husband is a mountain biker and occasional fixer of our car.

Thanks in anticipation.

Hi "silly moo"
Firstly can I apologise for my part in occasionally leading this thread astray.
As is usually the case when people ask for product advice on a forum you have received a number of recommendations mostly based on member's experiences. All the suggestions are priced at less than £20 and personally I don't think there is likely to be much difference in overall quality between any of them. It is the price range that I would aim for bearing in mind that I don't use them very often and don't require a very high degree of accuracy but would something in this price range be good enough for your husband? As I'm sure you know us men can be fussy devils and if you present him with a set of callipers that aren't as good as his old ones then he is likely to be disappointed. Can I suggest that you try and determine the quality/price range of the ones that your son has "borrowed" and at least try to match that.

Apologies also if my light hearted post's about battery usage went off on another tangent, but they were on my part based on fact.

For what its worth if your looking to buy Digital Verniers of reasonable quality anything between £20- £40 should be more than enough. Unless that is of course you are looking to buy a top end quality DV then Mitutoyo are one of the best.

Hope that helps
Dave

[TrevL]

Totally agree with John and Dave, go with your prefered price point, however, if you want the best, Mitutoyo is the brand to go for, but you have to pay for that quality.  Cheapest I can find a 150mm (6") one, is £115 on Amazon.  I used my Mitutoyo professionally on a daily basis, in the Aerospace industry, for over 15 years, with annual calibration checks it never failed, until I accidently destroyed it with a heavy object :'(

[chrism]

I used my Mitutoyo professionally on a daily basis, in the Aerospace industry, for over 15 years, with annual calibration checks it never failed, until I accidently destroyed it with a heavy object :'(

They aren't made for sitting on 

[silly moo]

Thank you very much for the very helpful replies. My son suggested some callipers which were quite expensive but in the end I decided that the ones from Amazon that Mr Sprue mentioned seemed like a good bet. They have lots of positive 5 star reviews.

Yesterday we went out in the vicinity of Lidl and my husband said "Let's go to Lidl, so I can get some callipers" so I had to confess and tell him that a set were on their way. So now he knows what one of his birthday presents is but at least I will have got him something useful.

He is like me, we both have our hobbies which we can spend quite a bit of money on but buying presents for us is tricky as we have very specific requirements and lots of swag already.