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At the risk of sounding like a fan-boy, I agree with you in principle but Spyderco is still an All-American company. Several of their mainstream (i.e. less expensive) models are mass-produced in China to keep costs down but from what I've seen they keep a fairly tight grip on quality control.

Sal Glesser himself (the owner of Spyderco) has addressed this issue on the Spyderco forum and I certainly can't argue with his reasons. He's a gentleman and a patriot but he's also a good business man.

I'd recommend a Spyderco Persistence. For under $35 it's a great value. G-10 scales, full-flat grind, 8CR13MoV steel (good corrosion resistance and edge holding), nice jimping along the grip and spine, brass bushings for a smooth deployment, and skeletonized stainless steel liners. The clip can be adjusted for four different carry styles (right/left hand, tip up/down). It's also small enough to fit loose in your pocket if you choose. It is a liner lock rather than a lock back but you might find you prefer that for one-hand close.

It's a lot of knife for the money.

marksiwel wrote:if I dropped a thousands dollar on a knife, I would never use it.

I'm the same way. A guy I work with bought a Black Box Benchmade (carbon fiber, Damascus, etc) off eBay for just under $500.

He tried to carry it but just couldn't do it. He eventually locked it in his safe.

Just a few questions to help narrow down the scope of your search:

1) When you say you "dont mind paying a bit if its well built", what range do you mean? Production knifes can run anywhere from $30 for a decent Gerber, SOG, Kershaw, etc. to a several hundred dollars for a nice Benchmade, Al Mar, Emerson, etc. Then you've got custom knifes that can run into the thousands.
2) Are you looking for a folder or fixed?
3) What do you need it for? General utility knife for opening boxes? Tactical for self-defense? Something in between?

Spyderco probably makes a knife to fit you. My biggest difficulty is selecting my Knife du Jour.