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Six individual micrometers will serve your needs much better than a single large frame micrometer will extension anvils unless you are dealing with very extraordinary circumstances that make weight or storage volume critical. I'll buy used measuring equipment ONLY if I can personally examine it before purchase. You'll need to make your own decision about buying used equipment through ebay and the other internet auction sites. From what I've seen, the micrometers imported from Poland are great values, offering excellent performance at a very reasonable price. They are getting harder to find, unfortunately, as some of the mail order suppliers have replaced the Polish tools with a "higher-end Chinese" line that look VERY much like the Mitutoyo micrometers. When it comes down to it, either the Polish or the Mitutoyo-looking Chinese micrometers should serve you well for many years. The Polish micrometers will need a good cleaning to remove the preservative grease layer and probably will need minor adjustment to zero correctly. The Mitutoyo-looking Chinese will need the cleaning and more likely than not a major adjustment to get them working right. A zero-to-six inch set of either of these, with standards, and in a wooden box, will probably run around US$ 100 from a mail order supplier (ENCO, Travers Tool, J&L Industrial, Victor Machinery Exchange, and so on. These places also sell the "standard Chinese" micrometers for US$ 20 or US$ 30 less. These micrometers will need the cleaning and probably a bit of deburring to get them working right. Although I've seen a lot of these micrometers in machine shops, I don't think they're worth buying unless A) cash is REALLY tight for you, and B) you know how to clean, deburr, and adjust them. Western European imports are usually excellent, but often higher-priced than American-made micrometers. Starrett is probably the highest-reputed US micrometer, but Brown & Sharpe and Scherr-Tumico are comparable. The two major Japanese players are Mitutoyo and NSK, and their micrometers are indistinguishable from the US and Polish models in terms of their quality. All in all, I'd say "Go Polish" if you can.
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