Spotting a fake Les Paul?

[Silver Beatle]

Hey there, just received an Epiphone Les Paul Custom from eBay. The guy said that the item was in the US so I had no worries about buying it, but once I did, it said the item was coming from Shanghai! What the hell?! And you know about all the fake ones coming out of China now.

So I'm here looking at it, it came with the proper Epiphone booklet and the tag, a lead and an allan key. The pickups also had the Epiphone stickers on, but I don't know how easy these are to come by in China or wherever. The guitar itself looks fine, however, the pickup selector switch looks different from my friend's Les Paul, but that's a Standard so I don't know if they are different for Customs or what.

The headstock seems fine, however, whenever you bend a string it sounds like its scraping on the fretboard. Never had that problem with my other guitars... Also all the strings are buzzing, but that might be a mere intonation problem.

The pickups sound alright, but I was always going to swap them out for Seymour Duncans anyway.

I've checked out the serial number and it checked out fine. So what I'm wondering is, is this a good fake or just a bad Epiphone?

[Kain Thornn]

Correct me if I'm wrong, some lower end Epis are made in China? Although I see your issue, I looked at a Gibson Les Paul on eBay and realized it was stone cold fake, the head had the familiar logo but it said "Gibsun". And yes, it was coming out of China.

[mcnach]

Originally Posted by Silver Beatle

Hey there, just received an Epiphone Les Paul Custom from eBay. The guy said that the item was in the US so I had no worries about buying it, but once I did, it said the item was coming from Shanghai! What the hell?! And you know about all the fake ones coming out of China now.

So I'm here looking at it, it came with the proper Epiphone booklet and the tag, a lead and an allan key. The pickups also had the Epiphone stickers on, but I don't know how easy these are to come by in China or wherever. The guitar itself looks fine, however, the pickup selector switch looks different from my friend's Les Paul, but that's a Standard so I don't know if they are different for Customs or what.

The headstock seems fine, however, whenever you bend a string it sounds like its scraping on the fretboard. Never had that problem with my other guitars... Also all the strings are buzzing, but that might be a mere intonation problem.

The pickups sound alright, but I was always going to swap them out for Seymour Duncans anyway.

I've checked out the serial number and it checked out fine. So what I'm wondering is, is this a good fake or just a bad Epiphone?

If you post some pictures maybe you get more helpful comments. At the moment it's hard to tell.
As for the scrapping feeling... it is probably a fret/frets that haven't been polished smoothly. Not a big deal. Same with buzzing... It sounds as if you're not familiar with setting up a guitar... take it to a shop where they set up guitars, and for just a few bucks they'll give you back a guitar that plays nicely (assuming that there's nothing wrong structurally with it).