Unambiguos Guitar Provenance Terminology

I am starting a new thread for this discussion so as not to hijack another post. I'll try to reproduce the relevant items so far:

I originally asserted:

Apologies in advance, but I am on a [part-time] mission for precise guitar provenance terminology. I think this is the only way we can all discuss these things with clarity and civility.

I think it's important to distinguish between originals, reproductions, and counterfeits. Another valid word for a reproduction is copy, and another valid word for counterfeit is fake. Both reproduction and counterfeit categories of items are typically approximations of another previously existing design (let's define that term as original), but a copy/reproduction explicitly makes no pretense that it's the original design. On the other hand, a counterfeit/fake pretends to be something else that it's not.

Note that it's possible to have a genuine copy/reproduction and a genuine original, but it is not possible to have a genuine counterfeit/fake.

Note also that, critically, quality of the guitar is not part of any of above definitions. Rather, quality is an entirely independent characteristic of the item in question. It's entirely possible to have a great quality fake, a crappy quality original, and all other permutations.

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Dave_Mc agreed:

^ agreed, good post.

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mirrorboy mostly agreed, but clarified:

Well stated den, but I disagree with the notion of a genuine copy because the necessary attribute of something that is genuine would be authenticity. All copies and reproductions fail the test of authenticity (as do fakes and counterfeits) because only an original can be described as authentic in the strictest sense.

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I agree the issue is authenticity and, in fact, I would probably go so far as to say that authentic and genuine are synonyms for our purposes.

But I rather believe that authenticity should refer to the identification of an item, rather than some other characteristics of that item. That is, something that identifies what it is and that identification matches what it really is, is authentic aka genuine regardless of any other characterstic. Something that identifies as one thing, but is something else, is not authentic (aka not genuine). I believe this characteristic is independent of other characteristics such as whether the item is a guitar or table, where and by whom it's made, it's "quality", colour, etc.

Authenticity, and all the other definitions here, are strictly about identification information, nothing else at all.

Pedantically, a "counterfeit" of a Tokai that was explictly labelled or identified as "Fake Tokai" rather than "Tokai", would legitimately not be a counterfeit and be authentic "Fake Tokai" i.e. it would be a reproduction of a Tokai, which is itself is a reproduction of another guitar design. A classic example is, of course, http://www.givson.com/. Nothing of concern in this example, everything purports to be what it is.

P.S. Yes, I know that stylistic qualities of a logo enter into a trademark discussion of Givson vs. Gibson, but I don't really want style to enter into our discussion as while it is also a kind of identification information, it is much more vague information than explicit language.

^ that's a good point mirrorboy makes. At the same time, there does need to be some term to distinguish "genuine" tokais and the like from "fake" tokais. half the posts on this forum are about "fake" tokais, lol, so clearly people want to know (with good reason).