Quite a clever bloke ole Lester William Polsfuss was.  Not only was he a bit of a whizz when it came to multi track recording and a multi million selling recording artist but he also messed about a bit with building guitars, one of which was his name sake.  In 1951 the Les Paul was born, obviously made by Gibson but don't let that put you off!!  Yeah it's nice to have the big G on your headstock and you'll probably look a lot cooler for it but please do yourself a favour and if possible try out a made in Japan model.