Don't laugh...my Les Paul "parts guitar" that cost me a whopping $220.00 in 1990.
I walked into a music store and it was sitting there on the shelf. It was a real Les Paul body with a Japanese "Maxx" Neck. Came with DiMarzio Super Distortion pickups. The guy who put it together eventually became the guitar tech that I took my gear to for the next 15 years.
Worked a crap stock boy job in a liquor store all summer to save up the money. My dad said I was nuts for buying it. I used it on every recording I did from the moment it came home all the way until 2010. I used in in Jazz Band in college and even performed music for a college play with it. I also put a Jolly Roger sticker over the Maxx headstock logo - It was a Pirate guitar that took no prisoners! Arrrrrr!
It survived a series of mishaps. The guitar was accidentally dropped inside the case one time by someone carrying it for me, but never had even the slightest crack. I once was sitting in a chair that let go under me and while I landed on my ***, the bottom edge of the guitar bounced off of the tiled over concrete floor but again...not a crack, dent, or scratch. It seemed to be the "Bluesmobile" of guitars. Until one day....
The guitar's neck started twisting and needed to be replaced. I tried to convince said guitar tech to replace the neck with a real Les Paul one but he said the cost wasn't worth it and I should just buy a new guitar. In all honesty, I think he just didn't want to do it, despite me being willing to pay for whatever was needed to make it work. So he recommended putting .011's on it (I'm used to .010's) to see if it would straighten itself out, but after almost a year of that he said it was just getting worse.
Sadly, I sold it on Ebay in 2010. By then, the pickups had been replaced countless times, and the gold finish on the stop tailpiece was completely worn off from my sweaty hands. I got $150 for it, so hopefully it went to a good home. The Pirate guitar sailed on to deeper waters, I guess.