No, Epeiphone is owned by Gibson since they bought them back in the 50s or 60s. Squier is the Fender equivelent. Actually I've owned a lot of Epis of over the years and they have all been good insturments. The old USA made Epis were almost equal to Gibsons (John Lennon used to use an Epiphone ES330). The new ones are not quite as good but still nice insturments. I recently sold my 2002 Korean made Epi Les Paul Standard, and it was a nice guitar. The Alinco pickups were not quite as good as the ones on Gibsons, and there are some other shortcuts that they take like using veneers on their flame tops instead of solid wood, but they are still good guitars.
Squiers go from cheap to pretty good, depending on the model. Even the cheap ones are far, far better than the cheap guitars when I was starting out back in the 60s. I also own a Squier standard strat. It plays very nice. I replaced the crappy electronics with a quality prewired pickguard, and it plays and sounds great.
Thank you too, I’ve dusted it off and mostly everything I remember about it (except, I’m sure, the quality) is wrong.
Lennon, Harrison, and McCartney played Epiphone Casinos. The guitar was very similar to the Gibson ES-330, but it was called a "Casino.".
Most of the guitars in Gibson's ES line had a matching Epiphone that used the same "ES" model name; the Casino didn't and (trivia fact) was the only Epiphone in the Gibson/Eiphone semi-hollow body line where the Epiphone was the higher-quality and more expensive guitar in the 1960s.
McCartney bought his Casino in 1964 at the same time he bought his Ephiphone Texan, the acoustic on which he wrote and recorded "Yesterday."
McCartney's been quoted as saying that if he could have only one electric guitar, it would be an Epiphone Casino.
In December of 1965, George Harrison and John Lennon each got an Epiphone Casino. Harrison's had a factory Bigsby tremelo; Lennon's came with standard trapeze. For reasons nobody's ever been able to explain, Lennon's came with a black grommet around the tone selector switch.
Lennon eventually gave up his Rickenbacker 325c58 and used the Casino as his main guitar.
After the Beatles went to India, Lennon came back and sanded the sunburst finish off his Casino, taking it down to bare wood. That's the Casino most people remember, from the rooftop concert and the movie "Let It Be."
Lennon (and Harrison) each also owned a Gibson J-160e, and Harrison owned a Gibson J-200. On the electric side, Harrison owned an SG as well as a Les Paul ("Lucy") that Eric Clapton gave to him.