Epiphone Guitar Shops

Epiphone were founded in 1873 by Anastasios Stathopoulo and are one of the oldest existing manufacturers of hightest quality guitars. Unfortunately they never really found fame in modern times until bought out by Gibson in the 1950's, this is something of a tragedy as the original Epiphone guitars (particularly the archtops) are highly sought after and were of comparable quality to Gibsons of the same era. Epiphone also produce bass guitars, banjos and other stringed instruments. The name "Epiphone" is a combination of proprietor Epaminondas Stathopoulo's nickname "Epi" and "phone", Greek for "sound". The most famous of the Epiphone guitars introduced by Gibson after taking over was the Casino. The Casino was made in the same shape and configuration as a Gibson ES-330 guitar. It has a very heavy sound and is one of the best rhythm guitars due to its fairly thick sound when strummed. It is a genuine hollow body electric guitar with P90 pickups.

In the early 1970s, Epiphone began to manufacture guitars in Japan. From the 1980s, Epiphones were manufactured mainly in Korea 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, Korean-era solidbody Epiphones would have been built under license. The brand was primarily used to issue less expensive versions of classic Gibson guitars, in a manner similar to that of the Squier brand by Fender. These Epiphones were sometimes built with different tonewoods from the original Gibson versions, which often resulted in the instruments bearing a visual and ergonomic similarity to the Gibson originals but having a slightly different tone. For example, bodies of the G-400 SG copy guitars were made with either mahogany or alder body, depending on the availability of the wood. Unique Epiphone guitars, 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 Epiphone "Masterbilt" acoustics are manufactured in Qingdao.

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