Is there a rule of thumb on which ones to get (brand)?      Right now I'm pretty much a newb at doing canning but am trying to learn.    But currently working on collecting supplies.   I found some inexpensive ones at farm and fleet but not sure if they are any good or some of the reviews claim they are chinesium junk.     Ball is hit or miss in stores around me so looking for a good online source.

Ball is the gold standard. There are others that rival Ball but they're not widely available.

Newell, parent company of Jarden, producer of, Ball, Kerr & Golden harvest lids & jars is the best known US producer.

I have been happy with lids from Superb Manufacturing out of Ohio.  They only make lids.

Tecnocap has also been around a while, their lids are unbranded, but I have found them to be of good quality.  In the past they were indicated as US manufactured on the box, I do not know anymore, I have not received any lids from them for at least 2 years.  They make a lot of the one piece lids where the lid and ring are all one piece.  Like you might find on a jar of home style peaches at a grocery store.

I have used all of the above lids and been satisfied.  I have used Chinese sourced lids as a test for comparison to US lids but prefer not to - even though they did seal when we did our part.  They are thinner, I am not sure of their rust resistance, and I do not trust chinese gasket material or metal to be food safe.

Ball is the best known brand, followed by Kerr.

I will concur with the above.  Ball (aka Newell formerly Jarden Brands) is the gold standard mostly because they have been around a while with a proven track record.  They make products under the Kerr and Golden Harvest brand names and are virtually identical.

I've had good success with Tattler reusable lids.  They are more expensive than single use (and some people use the single-use lids more than once) so the payoff is after the 4th usage or so depending on the purchase price.

Hey lumper, is there any way to identify a china lid from the US made ones. Other than being thinner, is the gasket material a different color or anything like that. I bought some unmarked ones last year during the shortage from Hilshers General Store here in PA and I'm not so sure they were produced domestically.

I cut some of the lids in half and measured them. My unmarked ones are the same thickness as the Ball lids I measured.
And I weighed some intact lids and the unmarked ones were a few grains heavier on average than the Ball lids.
Using them will be the true test, but my confidence level is high.

Thanks for the info..  found a bunch of Ball lids at farm and fleet in IL.   Bought a bunch of each.

Sigs, the weight difference was only about 2 or 3 grains on a lid that weighs about 140 grains. Not significant in my opinion.
And yeah, the weight isn't the only thing. Food safe metal, quality seal material is more important.
I looked at a cross section of the seal on the lids I cut and while they appear to the same thickness, they are a different type of rubber. I'm going to just keep using my Ball lids and reserve the unmarked for a last resort.

https://www.reusablecanninglids.com/

We had a discussion about canning lids over on survival forum.  One member recommended these lids.  They can be used up to 10 times, but they are not allowed to advertise that as the USDA considers the metal flat lids as a one-time use only item.  The sealing compound is blue and is much thicker than the red sealing compound.  The link is to regular but they also have wide mouth.

https://www.lehmans.com/product/canning-jar-lids-regular-mouth-pack-of-60/

To be honest, I have not purchased them at this point in time.  It seems because the sealing compound is so much thicker they might not hold a vacuum seal, same thing with the tattler lids.  I am switching over a lot of stuff to freeze drying and sealing in jars as well as mylar.  It is lighter weight and the fam does not think I am trying to kill them with canned food.

ETA:  There is also a company called Fillmore Container.  They carried canning jars and lids.  I have not checked their site lately.

3.99 for the regular and 4.99 for the wide mouth

This is the conversation I mentioned in my post above.  Post #9 discusses the Superb/blue compound lids.

https://www.ar15.com/forums/Outdoors/PSA-If-you-can-from-your-garden-or-want-to-can-in-the-future-buy-whatever-jars-you-want-NOW/17-702144/

When I went on an experimenting spree, and I had a heck of a time finding more lids to keep around, I sprung for a pack of Tattlers in normal and wide.  So far I've had jams/spreads canned for probably 9+ months, and no failures to seal that weren't obvious right after canning.  I still do a couple metal lids in each batch to keep around if I want to give them out to friends/family.

What I'm trying to say is the Tattler lids are now my default lid.

Not really if they are an unlabeled lid.  For what it is worth, Ball produces and sell unbranded lids in bulk rolls.  So unless you trust the seller is able to source and sell name brand US made lids, you will not be sure.  The unlabeled Ball lids come in paper rolls about 24 or 30 inches long.  In the past, these were often sold as full rolls in areas were canning is common.  If I remember correctly the nearby Whispering Pines fruit farm store would have sold them this way, and based on the conservative population local to that area a lot of the local family run stores would have also.  I know Old Trail Supply did  when I used to deliver there.  I suspect if you ask an employee at Hilshers they would know exactly what you were looking for.  A lot of the Chinese lids look similar down to the gasket color, so you are going on trust.

If the store is selling the full paper rolls, you can be almost certain that they are breaking down Ball lids for resale.  This was and still is a common practice for this style of store since the bulk lids cost a good bit less per lid than the 12 count boxes.  Both Ball regular & large lids are available this way.

I would suspect based only on my own difficulty of sourcing US produced lids over the shortage last year that most likely you did not purchase unbranded Ball lids.  They just were not available on the wholesale level.

The Ball brand bulk lids are finally becoming available again, I have received well over 100,000 Ball & Superb lids in the last few months.  The price as everyone would have figured has gone up quite a bit.

I was the one that tried to seal the Superb lids in a commercial chamber vac.  I was not successful in reliably sealing the jars.  I did find that with the Superb lids that a lighter ring tension than I used on the Ball lids tended to  produced a more reliable seal.  In short, however the failure ratio was too high.  I suspect that the limited amount of time the vacuum was applied was not a sufficient amount of time for the atmosphere within the jar to be removed.  The more flexible gasket of the Superb lids worked against me in this application.  I actually had best luck with a simple one piece style lid, but in the end I final just used an oxygen absorber to seal jars if that was the route I wanted to use.

Thanks for the info.
The ones I bought were repacked into plastic bags, each had 25 per bag. I bought some from Hilshers and I think I may have also bought some from Old Trail. Will ask Clyde at Old Trail next time I see him. Then there is the Van Wert Store, which also sells unmarked repacks, which have been out of stock until recently. I remember seeing some in bulk that were in paper sleeves but I don't remember where, my memory is not what it used to be.
I checked my stash of canned meat and I do have some brisket that have unmarked lids that were canned last summer and the seal is fine.