Some more freebies I came across...haven't tried any of them. (yet)
http://0on3.wordpress.com/category/kontakt-builds/
 

Some favourites.
 
Sound Dust - Hammr Growler
Lyrical Distortion - LP Custom Power Chords
Indiginus - Mountain Dulcimer (I like Torch and AGC but this is something unique)
Precision Sound - Maestrovox
Synth Magic - Sounds of the Quadra
Analogue Drums - Split Sticks
Boulder Sounds - Bluegress Banjo or maybe Guitarron.
Hideaway Studios - Pentodan Choir or the String Collection.
Waves factory - +1 for Tea Towel Drums
Hollowsun - The original Newtron Bomb.
 
 
 

Bonzos Ghost
Some more freebies I came across...haven't tried any of them. (yet)
http://0on3.wordpress.com/category/kontakt-builds/
 

I checked this out and found a bunch of really cool looking libraries. Vintage gear and weird instruments abound. I'll be doing some testing later, thanks for the tip.

Hammr Growler, Guitarron and Split Sticks were already on my list. Many of those, though, I've not heard yet. More research is required...whew, it can take all day to research something that'll end up being distilled into one or two sentences in a review...
 
Bonzo, thanks for the Xtant tip, that's a new one to me.
 
I've just been going through my own libraries and noticed one that I'd not put on the list but definitely deserves a recommendation: Epic Battle from Rado Records. I don't know how I forgot about that one, as I use that library a lot.

For both Hollow Sun and Hideaway, there are just *so* many jewels that it's hard to narrow it down.  At least in the running for best of brand would be Hideaway's recently released Synergenesis (I also concur that Pentodian Choir and Strings are definitely candidates, as is The Orbitone Collection).  For Hollow Sun, I'd really hate to be without the very inexpensive NovaLite.  But I'm also totally in love with the pad engine Pulstar and the RMI piano, to name just a couple.  Like I said, too many from which to pick!

Someone mentioned Rattly and Raw. Their Cassamplerette Renaissance is their best and most popular product, and it's only £30.00. I'm using it quite a bit on a game soundtrack I'm writing right now.
 

With Hollow Sun and Hideaway Studios you can't go wrong - and they each provide an abundance of samples so you know what you're getting. Hollow Sun's Pulstar is amazing, but that's just one of many. Hideaway Studios has plenty of packs that are great.

I'm still interested if anyone has come across nature or environmental sound samples for $50 or less.

 
I don't know of a sample set for Kontakt, but I've bought some inexpensive nature, and environmental CDs in the past, and I have just ripped them into wav files and dragged them into Kontakt.

Eddie TX
There are a lot of inexpensive drum libraries out there for Kontakt:
 
http://fraublucheraudio.tictail.com/
http://www.drumdrops.com/
http://www.realdrums.nl/
http://www.loopsdelacreme.com/
 
This is just a few ... I'm sure there are more good ones I can't think of right now.
 
Cheers,
Eddie
  BTW has anyone else checked out drumdrops? I like their stuff and most of it is multiformat.

Simple Sam Samples has what looks to be an absolutely incredible sampled and extremely playable solo violin. The catch is that it's only usable for extremely fast, short-note playing. There are no legato or even slightly longer marcatos samples. I had just purchased the awesome Embertone Friedlander Violin when I heard about this one, which also handles fast playing brilliantly, but I watched the videos and listened to the demos, and as long as all of that is legit, it sounds amazing. And it's only $14.95 right now (regularly $44.99 - still an awesome price). Has anyone tried this for themselves? 

http://simplesamsamples.c...anini-solo-violin.html

(edited to explain that the violin only plays short notes)