Epiphone

The name "Epiphone" is a combination of proprietor Epaminondas Stathopoulo's nickname "Epi" and "phone", Greek for "voice". The Epiphone Company is a musical instrument manufacturer founded in 1873 by Anastasios Stathopoulos.
Epiphone was bought by Chicago Music Company, who also owned Gibson Guitar Corporation, in 1957. Epiphone was Gibson's main rival in the archtop market. Their professional archtops, including the Emperor, Deluxe, Broadway and Triumph, rivaled (and some contend surpassed) those of Gibson. Aside from their guitars, Epiphone also made bass guitars, banjos, and other stringed instruments.
The history of Epiphone started in 1873, in Smyrna, Ottoman Empire (now İzmir, Turkey), where Greek founder Anastasios Stathopoulos made his own fiddles and lutes (oud, laouto). Stathopoulos moved to the United States of America in 1903, and continued to make his original instruments, as well as mandolins, from Long Island City in Queens, New York. Anastasios died in 1915, and his son, Epaminondas, took over. After two years, the company was known as The House Of Stathopoulos. Just after the end of World War I, the company started to make banjos. The company produced its Recording Line of Banjos in 1924, and, four years later, took on the name of the "Epiphone Banjo Company".
They produced their first guitars in 1928. Epi Stathopoulos died in 1943. Control of the company went to his brothers, Orphie and Frixo. Unfortunately, they were not as capable owners as Epi. In 1951, a four month long strike forced a relocation of Epiphone from New York to Philadelphia. The company was bought out by their main rival, Gibson in 1957. In the famous "Dueling Banjos" scene in the 1972 motion picture Deliverance, actor Ronny Cox plays an Epiphone acoustic guitar.

In the early 1970s, Epiphone began to manufacture instruments in Japan. From the 1980s, Epiphones were manufactured mainly in Korea but also in Japan by contractors licensed by Gibson. One of these contractors was Samick, which also built instruments under license for other brands and in its own name. Thus, a Korean-era solidbody Epiphone would have been built under license. The brand was primarily used to issue less expensive versions of classic Gibson models, in a manner similar to that of the Squier brand by Fender. These Epiphones were thought to have sometimes been built with different species of woods from the original Gibson versions; some players speculated that this resulted in the instruments bearing a visual and ergonomic similarity to the Gibson originals but having a slightly different tone, however this has always been suspected to be based on prejudice more than empirical fact. Samick has stopped manufacturing guitars in Korea. In 2002, Gibson opened a factory in Qingdao, China, which manufactures Epiphone guitars exclusively. With few exceptions, Epiphones are now built only in the Qingdao factory.

Unique Epiphone models, including the Emperor, Zephyr, Riviera and Sheraton, are built to higher quality standards than the company's "Gibson copy" line. Epiphone also produces a range of higher quality instruments under the "Elitist Series" moniker, which are built in Japan. The "Masterbilt" acoustics are manufactured in Qingdao.

List of Epiphone products
Acoustic guitars
Acoustic/electric guitars
Amplifiers
Archtop (semi-hollowbody) guitars
Bass guitars
Bluegrass instruments
Electric guitars
Designer series
Goth series
Les Paul
SG
Children's guitars
Gibson Spirit USA Manufactured