But seriously...
About six months ago, I had a run in with a beautiful and almost mint sounding 1957 Les Paul Junior. It was one of those that had hiyaw. It had a great sounding P-90. It had original frets in mint condition. I ABed it against a vintage 1956 Fender Telecaster and the LP just blew it out of the water. The only down side was that the jack had been replaced. It was going for about P300,000. I did not pull the trigger because I was NOT ready to do vintage yet AND the frets despite being in original condition felt too low and it was hard to bend.
Some time later, I learnt that a similar Gibson Custom Shop Recreation would cost around P200,000. And then a bit much later, Crescendo would sell their 2015 Gibson USA Les Paul Juniors (the one with robo tuners and larger headstock with the ugly Les Paul signature) for around P30,000.
So, I ask you what's expensive and what's cheap?
Case 1: In my opinion, the 1957 vintage Les Paul is Cheap. Why? It was a rare vintage instrument with hiyaw. Plus a great sounding dog ear P90 which is so so so hard to find. And more importantly, for the cheapo people, the 1957 had Honduran Mahogany and a Brazilian Rose wood fingerboard which are NOT available options on any current Gibson being produced today.
Case 2: In the event that all 3 Les Paul Juniors had hiyaw, I would buy BOTH the original 1957 and the Gibson USA Les Paul Junior circa 2015. Why would I buy that ugly Gibson USA Les Paul Junior? Because it was cheap.
P.S. Les Paul Juniors back in the day which meant 1950s were considered cheap. The only reason I can think about why its so expensive today is its 50s connection to the so called Golden Age of Gibson. If we probably called it Greco, it would still be cheap today.