I own a Gibson USA Les Paul Studio that has a Vintage Sunburst finish and no body/neck binding, I bought it slightly shop-damaged for Au$2000.00, it was normally retailing for Au$2599.00, I have also owned a Fender Mexican Standard Stratocaster which I remember paying Au$999.00 for, to be honest I was a bit underwhelmed by the quality, I had a lot of trouble keeping the guitar in tune and the stock tuners suffered from varying degrees of backlash when brand new, I may consider buying a new Fender Mexican strat again one day if I can find a better example, a lot of the times, you do end up paying more for these USA-made instruments because they attract import-duties, and the shops that sell them here in Australia put a large mark-up on them to get a better profit-margin, when you pay lots of money for a recently-manufactured genuine standard USA Gibson Les Paul most of the money you pay seems like it goes into all the binding on the guitar, I have read stories on the internet where some Gibson guitars had to be returned to the manufacturer to correct manufacturing defects with the nuts.