Epiphone has had its own Gibson China factory in Qiang Dao (spelling?) for about 5 years, cranking out LP's and others, as well as acoustics. Prior to that, and still, depending on the model, they contractedwith a number of Korean factories, among them Samick, Aria and Peerless, just to name a couple.

As Korea got more expensive, they shifted contracts to Chinese factories, and then again to Samick & Cort, who'd boogied away to Indonesia in search of cheaper rice.

Epiphone's now dwindling Elitist series were mainly contracted Japanese, using the same mfr (Fujigen) as many high end Ibanez models. Ibanez used Cort (part of their parent Hoshino Japan empire) Korea for many models, now also in Indonesia.

G&L's Tribute Series started out as Japanese product in the 80's, then faded away for a while, to come back in 2004 under contract with Cort Korea. A couple of years ago, this went to Indonesia.

Washburn used Samick Korea for a slew of electric and acoustic models, again, until 2004 or so when Samick flew the coop to Indonesia.


The common recurring factory thread here: Samick, Cort.

In general, the pecking order from 'high end' to 'budget' goes Japan, Korea, China, Indonesia.