Funny reading about cheap first guitars of yesteryear.... I am a lead guitarist, 57 years old and have been playing since the age of eleven, I now own over 25 of the most sought after professional guitars on the market today of just about every popular brand. ...my first guitar wasn't even good enough for the Sears catalogue...my parents, who although both worked very hard to support and raise my siblings and myself, were definitely not a family of wealthy means by any stretch...but to nurture their young 11 year olds dreams of becoming a guitarist they bought me a guitar they could afford to pay for, it was a K-Mart Special....literally... bought it from our local KMart store which by the way closed down decades ago...but I remember what it looked like vividly to this day, can't recall the name on the headstock but it was a sunburts Les Paul copy...I played it for hours and hours every day after school and all day on weekends...no amp of course, definitely couldn't afford that..I didn't get my first amp until I was old enough to get a job and buy one for myself , by then I replaced the pick ups with Dimarzios, changed the tuning pegs to grovers, new pots through out... needless to say I got a lot of mileage out of that faithful old Kmart special.