From what I've seen of 2nds on US ebay and such,you're dead right..it's just that few if any of my aquaintances,or even an ex Reviews Editor of Guitarist (apparently) have ever *seen* an Epi marked as a second which was issued as a UK guitar,whether by label or as you said,seems R****** the UK importer,could be cutting a deal with factories just to label/tag them,allegedly...we won't really get to know ...

For my ha'penny the scratch/dents guitars should have been given to large dealers as volume "loss leaders",etc and the warped neck ones should have been stripped and the necks burned or hung up as "how not to" in the factory that made them.

The fact that a large UK ebay Gib/Epi "dealer" suddenly has new stocks,2 days after this was printed... is surely coincidental(Hah!).

Seems funny also that Fender don't seem to offer seconds ...not lately..