[sshirley]

I certainly believe that the upper-end Epiphones compare favorably with lower-end Gibsons. I'm not going to say that my Epi Standard is as good as a Gibson Standard but it's a very nice guitar in it's own right.

As far as comparing a Squire to an Epiphone, they are not nearly the same in build quality. In my experience, your regular line Epiphones are closer in quality to some US made Fenders. No flaming please, just my experience. My LP Standard is much nicer than my MIM Strat and MIM Tele.