I understand wanting the knife built in the USA, and I'm very much an advocate of buying things made in the US whenever possible (although, at least Spyderco is a US company who employs a decent amount of American's) - but read the numerous threads about why Spyderco's "premium" knives are built in Taiwan. Those who own knives like the Gayle Bradley, Sage 2, Tuff, Techno, etc, understand. Basically, even if Spyderco opened up an all new facility so they would actually have the production capacity to produce the Southard and their other highest end designs (since they're running at full steam in their current facility and are still unable to quite keep up, which is why you have out of stock PM2's, underproduced Fluted Ti Millie's, etc), they could not build those knives the same way for anywhere near the same price as the build them in Taiwan for.
Think about it, it's a Taiwanese knife and it still costs well over $200. Building it here would tack on at least an extra $100, but probably more like DOUBLE the cost (that's why people compare the fit and finish to Chris Reeve, which is a knife built in the USA... for double the price). Also, I know the Colorado Spydies are very well made and the craftsmen are great, but I'm not even sure they're trained to the level that the Taiwanese producers are to build the knives to that level of detail. That would be a big part of the extra cost. The level of craftsmanship is outstanding and the USA Spyderco's are great but clearly not nearly as focused on attention to detail and fit and finish, etc. To train American's to build the Southard and the other premium Spydies exactly as they are currently made and also give them the amount of time required to put into each knife so that they came our just as perfect would cost a TON and we would pay for it.
As much as I try to avoid sending money overseas at all costs (for products like this, I mean - of course it's impossible not to send money overseas without sacrificing a lot of everyday life type things), I love what Spyderco has done. They've picked out some extremely skilled and well trained craftsmen who care about their work (regardless of being American or not) and they ultimately have given us some custom quality knives (actually, BETTER fit and finish than many customs I've owned) at a much more intermediate price range. There's no one else that does what they do for their price. Sure, ZT is pretty awesome and valuable, but a 561 (which is the perfect comparison for the Southard) is still more expensive and as nice as they are, I none of the 560's I've owned or any other ZT's have been on par with with my Tuff, Techno, Gayle Bradley, Sage 2, etc, in terms of fit and finish and attention to detail, even if they're on par in just about every other way. They just still lack that ultimate custom level detail.
