History
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. 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.
Epiphone instruments made between 1957 and 1969 were made in the Gibson factory at 225 Parsons Street and on Elenor Street. Only solid guitars with flat tops and backs were made at the Elenor Street plant (both Gibson and Epiphone) in Kalamazoo, Michigan. These Epiphone instruments were effectively identical to the relevant Gibson versions, made with same timber, materials and components, and by the same people as the contemporary equivalent Gibson guitars. They shared the Gibson serial-number sequence.
Some specific examples of Gibson-made Epiphone instruments from this period includes the Epiphone Casino (similar to the Gibson ES-330), the Epiphone Cortez (similar to the Gibson B-25), the Epiphone Olympic Special (similar to the Gibson Melody Maker), the Epiphone Sorrento (similar to the Gibson ES-125TC, except for a few cosmetic changes), and the Epiphone Texan (similar to the Gibson J-45, apart from a change in scale-length). The other Kalamazoo-made Epiphones had technical or cosmetic relationship with the similar Gibson version.
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