That sort of activity is maddening!
This counterfeiting business is so horrible.
In the sax world, the knock off saxes are laughably bad, but the knocking off of vintage mouthpieces is big big business and very hard to tell the difference. They have figured out how to age them âjust rightâ with all the proper wear marks. Many a player (proâs included) have been had by them.
If people only put the energy into doing something goodâŚ
Not only have they brought the world to its knees with Covid and got away with it,theyâre flooding the market with counterfeit crap 
Technology is making it easier to do counterfeit for sure. Though it is also making it easier to detect counterfeit.
It can be a thin line though, kinda. Though not counterfeit, there are plenty of copies we embrace. Is a cab-sim copy fine? What about all the digital defects pedal copies on a multi-effects pedal? What about an instrument clone that looks, plays and sounds virtually the same as the original? Like a Fender 60s Custom Shop.
What we donât want is counterfeit that is significantly inferior to the original.
The reason I bring this up is that while technology is advancing counterfeits, it is also advancing the accuracy of copies. And thatâs a good thing. Mostly. Then again, some that have originals might hate others having less valuable copies that appear to be the sameâŚ
Horry cow !! . . . . 
China strikes again . . . I wouldnât buy a pickguard screw from that place 
Cheers
Joe
Another factor - kind of the elephant in the room - is that given trends over the last couple decades, they may have been higher quality than actual Gibsons 
Iâve never understood paying thousands of dollars for an autograph 
The things with your examples, though, are that you know what youâre paying for. Knock-offs are not counterfeit (I know you said that) - a knock-off is not being sold (and priced) as the âreal thingâ. Youâre not paying for one thing and getting another. Something claiming to be âauthenticâ, that isnât authentic, is not the same as a knock-off. I donât really think itâs that thin of a line between thievery and knock-offs.
If you think about it, there are a lot of knock-off Jazz, Precision, and Music Man basses.