Columbus was a brand of cheap-to-middle priced guitars in the 70s. Nearly all of them were copies of Fenders or Gibsons; they were playable as first guitars but certainly not up to e.g. Squiers. Columbus were distributed by a UK company called Fletcher, Coppock & Newman, who also distributed Kimbara guitars. Kimbaras were much better quality, really nice instruments for the money (about double the price of a Columbus or less than half that of a Fender). I still have - and gig with - my Kimbara Jazz copy, I swapped the PUs for a pair of Reflex Reds but apart from that it's all original. I wouldn't part with it for the world.