Biff

Nope, not me. I fail to see the point in wasting the money on something completely useless. Besides, it's illegal to import any counterfeit goods into EU these days, even for your personal use... The probability of fooling a guitarsnob friend with one of those is pretty slim, as is the chance of you ever getting your money back. If it was simple to sort out the disputes, the shops like that would be out of business pretty soon. If you spend a little time looking, you can find decent MIC instruments (like Epiphones) that are superior to any of the fakes (now that's not hard), that will have a warranty and don't finance international organized crime. I wonder what makes people (in general) think that fake guitars that look like the expensive ones will play as good as the originals? You're lucky if they even have a truss rod in that shitty neck, and getting an Epiphone modified to look like a Gibson is like hitting the jackpot.. regular Epiphones are still top of the line compared to those sorry "guitars".

Buy a new Gibson Baldwin LP for what they sell, $99 ? That's probably the level of workmanship and materials you're looking at on these fakes. Although the Gibson Baldwin might even be solid wood or veneer, instead of particleboard like some of the fakes.

I was trawling the 'bay the other day, found a seller in UK with images of '08 Epiphones. The price was about right, but after seeing the serial numbers on the back of the headstocks, I reported the seller. The scam artists had missed the fact that the '08 EE serials have one digit more than what they used to have a couple of years ago. A quick visit to Sweetwater's guitar gallery soon verified that the font and placing of the serials were both totally wrong... So be careful out there, buy from authorized dealers.

Buy a couple of push-pull pots and save yourself the trouble.

The only TRC I'm not happy with is the 57's. Don't know what to put on instead, though.

I had an Epiphone SG Special made in EE, returned the first one and sold the replacement pretty fast...