I believe the New Meade owned weavers are still Made in Japan. The V series and the Fixed powers represent an excellent value in a fully multi coated scope.
Most of the Phillipnes scopes I have seen were Simmons, but that company is owned by Meade too. In My opinion the quality of Simmons, Weaver (and supposedly Redfield) have all gone up a notch since being bought by meade.
You can get a used Weaver v9 on ebay for the kind of money you are talking about. Also looked for a close out redfield or Smith and Wesson scope. I bought a new in box Smith and Wesson 3-9x40 made in japan with FULLY MULTI coated optics for 100 bucks from a company called CDNN. It is a good scope. They also have a redfield scope that is so similar, I think they are made in the same factory. It is also 100 bucks. In most case, warranty repair is available for these scopes even though S&W is no longer having them made.
I see brand new Burris FullfieldII 3-9 scopes on ebay and mail order (Natchez and such) that run around 150, or 200 bucks for hte scope and a pair of Burris 8x32 binoculars. This is a great deal! The Fullfield scopes is probably the best deal out there right now and it is a great mid priced scope at a low price point.
okcmco