Epiphone () is an American musical instrument brand originally founded in 1873 by Anastasios Stathopoulos in İzmir, Ottoman Empire, and moved to New York City in 1908. After taking over his father's business, Epaminondas Stathopoulos named the company "Epiphone" as a combination of his own nickname "Epi" and the suffix "-phone" (from Greek phon-, "voice") in 1928, the same year it began making guitars. From the 1930s through to the early 1950s, Epiphone produced a range of both acoustic and (later) electrified archtop guitars that rivalled those produced by Gibson and were the instruments of choice of many professionals; a smaller range of flat-top guitars were also produced, some designations of which were later continued during the Gibson-owned era for the company.
In 1957 Epiphone, Inc. was purchased by Gibson, its main rival in the archtop guitar market at the time. Gibson relocated Epiphone's manufacturing operation from Philadelphia to Gibson's Kalamazoo, Michigan, factory, where production of both ranges took place until 1969, with Epiphone instruments—some with "sister" models in the Gibson line, some unique to the Epiphone line—generally considered equal in construction quality to those produced under the Gibson brand. From 1970 onwards, Gibson ceased production of Epiphones in its U.S. factory and moved production offshore for a range of cheaper models. Today, Epiphone is still used as a brand by the Gibson company, both for budget models of other Gibson instruments and for several Epiphone-exclusive models. Aside from guitars, Epiphone has also made double basses, banjos, and other string instruments, as well as amplifiers.
History Epiphone began in 1873, in Smyrna, Ottoman Empire (now İzmir, Turkey), where Greek founder Anastasios Stathopoulos made his own fiddles and lutes (specifically, the oud and the laouto). Stathopoulos moved to the United States in 1903 and continued to make his original instruments, as well as mandolins, from a factory at 35-37 36th Street in Long Island City, Queens, New York. Anastasios died in 1915, and his son, Epaminondas ("Epi"), took over.
After two years, the company became known as "The House of Stathopoulo". 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". It produced its first guitars (the "Epiphone Recording" models) in 1928. In 1931 the company commenced production of its "Masterbilt" range of archtop guitars which became very popular and competed successfully with the equivalent range produced at the time by Gibson, its main rival in the archtop market. After Epi died in 1943, control of the company went to his brothers, Orphie and Frixo. In 1951, a four-month-long strike caused a relocation of the company from New York City to Philadelphia. A number of Epiphone employees decided to remain in New York rather than relocate to Philadelphia, and spearheaded by George Mann, former Epiphone Vice President and Secretary, formed the nucleus of the new Guild Guitar Company, whose early archtop guitar designs owed a lot to Epiphone.
In 1957 the company was acquired by Gibson parent company CMI, who merged Epiphone operations with Gibson. Between 1957 and 1969, the Gibson-owned production of Epiphone instruments took a parallel path to those marketed under the Gibson brand, with many equivalents between the two lines but also some instruments unique to the Epiphone range. The marketing strategy used was that since the number of Gibson dealerships was limited by design, equivalent quality instruments under the Epiphone label could be offered for sale through other dealerships thus in principle increasing market share overall. This arrangement lasted until 1969 at which point Gibson decided to cease production of the high grade, U.S.A.-made Epiphone instruments in favour of a cheaper range of lower grade instruments still bearing the Epiphone label, but now sourced in Japan.
By the late 1970s, Epiphone production began moving to Korea, and by the mid-1980s, all Epiphones were Korean-built. Beginning in 1997, Epiphone moved its production to China and Indonesia. Since merging with Gibson, the brand has been used for a number of different guitars, some manufactured by Gibson itself in its own factories, and some manufactured by other companies such as Matsumoku under contract to Gibson and marketed under the Epiphone brand.
Products Guitars Pre-Gibson era
Epiphone's first foray into the guitar market came in around 1928, with the release of the "Recording" range, styled models A through E. These guitars featured an unusual asymmetric body shape with what was in effect a strongly sloping cutaway on the upper treble bout, and either a trapeze tailpiece or a pin bridge, together with pegheads and tuners reminiscent of the company's banjos. The cheapest model, the A, featured a flat top and back, the B had an arched back and a flat top, while the remainder had arched tops and backs; additionally, they appear to have been available in two different sizes. These guitars had a distinctive sound but were not very successful commercially, and are rarely seen today.Walter Carter. Epiphone. The Complete History, pp.15-16
Commencing around 1931, Epiphone decided to release a new range of full body archtop guitars in direct competition with Gibson, the leading factory manufacturer of archtop guitars of the day. The newly announced "Masterbilt" series comprised the Deluxe (with its tenor version named the Empire), Broadway (tenor version the Bretton, later named the Broadway Tenor), Triumph (tenor version the Hollywood, later the Triumph Tenor), Royal, Spartan (tenor version the Regent, later the Spartan Tenor), Blackstone, Zenith (tenor version the Melody, later the Zenith Tenor), Olympic, and Beverly. Other models introduced a little later comprised the Emperor (1936), Byron (1938), Ritz (1941) and Devon (1951).George Gruhn and Walter Carter, 1991: Gruhn's Guide to Vintage Guitars. GPI Books. pp.23-25 These instruments were initially offered in acoustic, non-cutaway form, with cutaways appearing (often with the additional designation "Regent") from the late 1940s onwards, and with the addition of pickups, by the added designation of "Zephyr", thus an "Zephyr Emperor Regent" would indicate the (top of the line) Emperor model with added cutaway and pickups. Other archtops appeared solely in the amplified form, being the Zephyr, Century and Coronet (all 1939), Kent (1950) and a signature model named for Harry Volpe (1955).
Accompanying the archtop line were a range of flat top instruments, although these never acquired the cachet of their archtop companions. These included 2 Hawaiian models (the Madrid and the Navarre), plus the flat top FT 75 (introduced by 1935, discontinued 1942), FT 37 (1935-1942), FT 27 (1935-1941), FT De Luxe (1939-1942), FT 110, FT 79 and FT 45 (all 1942, all continued into Gibson era), FT 50 (1941-1950) and FT 30 (1941-1954, then reactivated in the Gibson era). Several cutaway flat top instruments were also made, designated the De Luxe Cutaway (also as the FT 210) and the Zephyr Cutaway.Gruhn and Carter, pp.27-28 It seems that Epiphone used ladder- rather than X-bracing for the tops of their flat top models, which may account for their less success in the market than comparable instruments by the Martin and Gibson guitar companies.
Gibson (Kalamazoo) era
Following Epiphone's purchase by Gibson in 1957, the lines of both electric and acoustic guitars were considerably revamped, with the introduction of new thinline hollow-body (semi-acoustic) guitars, solidbody electric guitars, and a much improved range of flat-top acoustic guitars, incorporating elements of Gibson's own designs. The 1961 catalog shows that the Emperor, Deluxe, Triumph and Zenith were still available as acoustic archtops, the Emperor, Sheraton, Broadway, Zephyr and Century together with new models the Windsor, Casino and Sorrento as electric archtops, the new models Crestwood Custom, Wilshire, Coronet and Olympic as electric solidbodies, while the acoustic range comprised the Seville (a nylon string instrument), and the steel string Frontier (continuation of FT 110), Texan (continuation of FT 79), Cortez (continuation of FT 45) and Caballero (continuation of FT 30).1961 Epiphone Catalog; reproduction available at https://www.vintageguitarandbass.com/epiphone/catalogues/1961_index.php Subsequent additions to these lines included the semi-acoustic Granada, Professional and Riviera models (all introduced 1962); as well as artist-endorsed models for Al Caiola (the "Caiola", introduced 1963) and Howard Roberts (1964), the latter with an unusual oval shaped soundhole. The Riviera was also available in a 12-string version (1965 onwards). New acoustic instruments comprised the Excellente, El Dorado, Troubador and Folkster, along with new "folk oriented" 12-strings the Bard (1962) and Serenader (1963); additions to the classical line comprised the Espana and Madrid (both 1962) and the Barcelona and Classic (both 1963). None of these instruments survived the termination of manufacturing of Epiphone instruments in Gibson's Kalamazoo plant in 1969, at least in their original form (subsequent Japanese models, some even re-using Kalamazoo-era model names, were of generally cheaper construction, for example using laminated woods and bolt-on necks as compared with their U.S.-made predecessors).
While some of the 1960s, U.S.A. built Epiphones had near-equivalents to models in the Gibson range of the day—for example the Riviera and Casino were very similar to the Gibson ES-335 and ES-330, respectively, the Frontier was somewhat similar to the Gibson Dove, while the Texan, Cortez and Cabellero were generally equivalent to the Gibson J-45, LG-2 and LG-0, respectively—others had no equivalent in the Gibson range, the Sheraton (semi-acoustic thinline version) and Excellente (acoustic) being top-of-the line instruments without any real parallel in the Gibson line/s of the day.Ian C. Bishop, 1979: The Gibson Guitar from 1950 Vol. 2. Musical New Services, London. Chapter Three: The Epiphone Story.
In England in the 1960s, several Epiphone models were brought to particular prominence via their use by The Beatles, Paul McCartney favouring a 1964 Epiphone Texan that he purchased in 1965 and used for the writing of "Yesterday" among other songs, while John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison all performed using Epiphone Casinos through much of the group's years of early commercial success.
Post-Kalamazoo era (1970s-current) From the 1970s onwards, production of Epiphone guitars has largely taken place in Japan, Korea and China (refer section "Manufacturing", below), with a very small number of models also produced in the U.S.A. Since the 2000s, Epiphone branded guitars have fallen broadly into three categories. Firstly, Epiphone is used as a "budget brand" for Gibson, producing identically-named but lower-priced versions of popular Gibson models, such as the Epiphone Les Paul, which serves as a budget model comparable to the Gibson Les Paul. Secondly, Epiphone has also been used to brand models under alternate names, but are otherwise similar to more expensive Gibson-branded guitars, for example the Epiphone G-400 is functionally equivalent to the Gibson SG, and the Epiphone Dot is essentially a budget version of the Gibson ES-335. Thirdly are models which are exclusive to the Epiphone brand without equivalent models produced under the Gibson brand, such as the Epiphone Coronet.
As of January 2021, Epiphone was marketing guitars under several lines, including several categorized on their website as "inspired by Gibson" for models that serve as the budget Gibson version. Historically, hundreds of different models have borne the Epiphone brand, and many are available in the used guitar market.