When I went to college one year I gathered them all up and fed them into a bonfire. Now, of course, they have a little value and a good tech can make them play halfway decent, but back then no way. No one knew how to set up a guitar or do a fret job.

All the American made cheap guitars were made in Chicago, in huge plants. They sold them at every department store, at truck stops, at carnivals, in record stores, at Radio Shack, everywhere.

Most were gifts by well intentioned parents or relatives for kids, or were bought by poor people who knew they were junk but could afford nothing else.