In 2021, Gibson Guitar Corp. / Gibson Brands, Inc. (2013) / Gibson, Inc. (2024) controlled the Epiphone name under KKR-led creditor group (Gibson). Its 5 lines on record were built at Other Korean contractors (Epiphone; unverified), Chinese contract factories for Epiphone (Daewon, Muse, Saein, Zaozhuang Saehan), PT Cort Indonesia, Ngoro, Terada Gakki, Gibson Qingdao, FujiGen and Japan special-model builder (Epiphone; FujiGen named generically) (South Korea, China, Indonesia and Japan).[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15]
A Epiphone guitar from 2021 belongs to whichever era was running on its product line that year. An era is a stretch when the company that controlled the name and the plant that built the line both stayed the same. If you know the line, the table below tells you which version of Epiphone you have. The name dates from 1904[S355], 117 years before.
Nothing changed in 2021. Every era running that year carried on from an earlier year, so a Epiphone from 2021 is the same version as one from 2020.
Where Epiphone was built in 2021
Chinese contract factories for Epiphone (Daewon, Muse, Saein, Zaozhuang Saehan), Gibson Qingdao, PT Cort Indonesia, Ngoro, Terada Gakki, FujiGen, Japan special-model builder (Epiphone; FujiGen named generically) and Other Korean contractors (Epiphone; unverified). See every brand each plant built for, and every plant in the same country:
Every numbered marker on this page points here: the document, its grade and the passages relied on. An era is computed, so it cites the facts it was derived from. A fact marked “no source” has no claim attached yet.
In 2002, Epiphone began producing a range of higher quality instruments under the "Elite Series" moniker which were built by Terada and FujiGen in Japan.Epiphone in 2021: owners and plants