Back in 2015 or 2016, I walked into a pawn shop to look for video games. Next to the games, I saw two of the Guitar Hero controllers for the PS3.
These two controllers were bundled together and were for sale for $10. That price seemed very cheap for the controllers so I handed over some cash and bought the bundle.
I checked online what these sold for on Amazon and I saw that one controller alone sold for about $30 used. Something odd about the listing was that most of the controllers did not include the dongle (wireless receiver). Without the receiver, you can't use the guitar controller.
Luckily for me, my bundle came with the receivers. I put my listing on Amazon for $50 each (controller and receiver) and I sold both within a few weeks or months.
This is how I started spiraling and raiding pawn shops for video games.
Since then, I've never seen these controllers being sold for this cheap again. Today, getting a Guitar Hero PS3 controller online will cost about $80. From 2006 to 2010, there were several installments in the Guitar Hero and Rock Band series which used the Guitar Hero controller. Guitar Hero Warriors of Rock was the last game in the standard series before the next Guitar Hero game came out.
In 2015, Guitar Hero Live was released and a different controller was used for that game. Instead of 5 fret buttons in a row, the new controller has 2 rows of 3 fret button each. The Les Paul controller would not work with that game and no Guitar Hero games were made since then.
I don't think Red Octane or Harmonix still make new controllers and I'm not aware of any third party guitar controllers. This means that all the GH3 controllers that exist are the only controllers left. This controller is required to have the classic Guitar Hero experience. Further more, these controllers don't last forever. After too much use, these controllers break down. If they aren't repaired, the total number of GH3 controllers will decrease over time.