Blog of Ian Parr

Following my narrow escape from one fake Les Paul through Ebay, I thought I’d grab another bargain through Ebay. This time the Epiphone Zakk Wylde signature Les Paul. The listing indicated the guitar was 100% genuine and indeed from the listing pictures, the guitar looked legit. I emailed the seller to ask and he replied that indeed it it genuine.
The listing also indicated a collection option was possible so I though I’d buy it and reject if found to be a fake on collection.
A few days after buying and email the seller for a collection time and location I received a reply indicating that collection was NOT in fact possible but he’d ship the guitar to me for free.
Hmmm.

A few more days of chasing a delivery date and the guitar finally arrived in a parcel looking like this:

Horrible looking tape all around a polystyrene box which when opened revealed this box that looked like it had been damp at some point:

Needless to say that as soon as I opened the box I realised it was in fact another fake.

Giveaways include these volume and tone pots:

They should of course look like this:

Other giveaways include this pickup selector switch:

It should of course look like this (no surround):

I’m also quite doubtful about the back of the headstock. Here is the picture of the back of the guitar I received:

And the stock Epiphone photo looks like this – note the colour difference in the circular logo:

The neck to body join at the heel also looks awful:

When compared to this:

I have posted loads more pictures of the fake I have received here

And a few pictures of a genuine guitar taken from the Epiphone website here

I’m in the process of pursuing the seller through both EBay and PayPal. I have been asked by EBay to obtain independent expert confirmation of the guitar being a counterfeit.
So far Gibson have been quite helpful – they have asked for photographs of the guitar which I have now sent to them for confirmation.

I’ll update this post with progress and details as and when I get them