Epiphone was in the
musical instrument business long before
Gibson was. The company started in 1873 as the "
House of Stathopoulo", after the founder, Anastasios Stathopoulo. The company then primarily made
violins, switching to
banjos in the early 20th century. In 1923, the business
incorporated, and in 1928, while
Epaminondas Stathopoulo was
president of the company, they changed their name to Epiphone, a combination of
Epi (Stathopoulo's
nickname) and
phone (from the
Greek word for
sound).
Epiphone started producing guitars in the 1920s, and was a major rival of Gibson, especially among orchestral and jazz players. In fact, it was an Epiphone archtop that Les Paul split in half to create his 'log' prototype of the electric guitar that would later be named after him.
The company started producing electric instruments in 1935 with the Electar series of guitars, which apparently had an electrified tailpiece.
During World War II, production stopped and Epi died. A period of mismanagement followed. Union troubles forced the company to relocate from New York City to Philadelphia in 1953, and on May 10, 1953 Gibson purchased the struggling company, and production was moved to Kalamazoo.
Epiphone remained as a brand name, and continued to release different instruments than its parent company. In 1963, the Casino model was released, which quickly became a favorite of The Beatles. (Epiphone historians like to point out that Ticket To Ride was recorded on Epiphone Casinos and that Yesterday was written on an Epiphone Texan model acoustic.)
In 1969, Norlin bought CMI, Gibson's parent company. Norlin had no experience in the music industry, and proceeded to royally fuck things up. The Epiphone name was attached to low-cost guitars built in Japan as a way of competing with the flood of cheap imported guitars.
In 1986, Dave Berryman, Henry Juszkiewicz and Gary Zebrowski bought Gibson from Norlin, who wanted to get out of the music business. The three set about turning the company around.
In the early 1990s, Epiphone became more independent of Gibson again, starting to produce new designs that weren't just copies of higher-profile (and cost) Gibson models, and reissuing classic Epiphone models like the Casino and Rivieras. In 1995, Epiphone moved into its own facility in Nashville.
When buying an Epi, it's rather important to play a whole bunch of them. For some reason, quality is extremely
spotty on the
production line, and two guitars that may look otherwise
identical may be wildly differing in
quality. It is perfectly possible to find fine
guitars bearing the Epiphone name, but the fact that it's similarly easy to find
crap, combined with the low price tag (an Epiphone Les Paul usually costs about
25% of what a similar Gibson would) have given Epis an undeserved reputation of making
poor instruments.
Epiphone was also the first company to release
pickups with individual
polepieces, the
truss rod that is adjustable at the base of the
neck, and the first
double neck guitar. They also hold patents for the predecessor of the
wah pedal and
whammy bar.
It's also worth noting that the Epiphone
logo is
suspiciously similar to the
Euro symbol, although with only one
crossbar. I believe they were both based on an early
epsilon, which would make sense.
Sources:
http://www.epiphone.com/history.asp?mod=hl
http://www.provide.net/~cfh/epiphone.html
http://www.bluebookinc.com/Serial-EG/epiphone.htm
http://www.marsmusic.com/store/gibson/about/index.jhtml