Actually my understanding is the only distributors he works on are Chrysler made, Prestolites for Chryslers, and some Mallory built units for Chryslers.
I'm a little fuzzy on what you mean by budget?
I'm sure you don't mean Skip White mystery distributor.
We can't turn the clock back to when a distributor from our local parts store was $15 or $20. :(
I would not pay $50 from the junkyard for a who knows what. That's way too much for a what might be a core or maybe even just parts.
Rick Ehrenberg's ads claim his small block distributors have same curve as the Chrysler built DC/MP distributors did. Likewise his B and RB have an advance like the 60's HiPo engines had. FWIW I've posted those advance curves here. No one I can recall has posted an advance they actually measured on an E_berg distributor. But if they are what they claim, that's a good starting point for most perfromance v-8 4bbls.