My first one was a mid-60's Ventura V75 flattop jumbo. It was shaped like a dreadnaught with a couple of inches spliced into the middle. I paid $35 for it used, and a couple of years later I ordered a new case for another $35. High action (the previous owner had strung it up with flatwounds in an effort to make it playable), thin neck, 3/8" thick pickguard, cheap tuners. The top looked like nice spruce, but that was just the veneer. Underneath was Philipine mahogany plywood and floor-joist bracing. Over the years I learned to inlay on its peghead, carved a piece of cherry wood to replace the white plastic heel cap....At one point I had a single-coil steel pickup in the soundhole and I used it as a lap-style.
After many years of playing electric, I decided I needed an acoustic again, so I had a luthier replace the plywood top with an excellent bearclaw spruce top, add a Guild-style bridge (compensated) and reset the neck. That turned it into a 6-string piano! Finally, I changed out the tuners to Gotohs. I use it for bottleneck, tuned to G (D-G-D-G-B-D) and in fact I had it out last night, playing some new material with my stepson. It's an amazing sounding guitar, and still has the original Ventura label inside the body for baffling visitors.
It still had all the masking tape I put on the frets to learn scales. 
