Best Epiphones and Squiers

late 80s and early 90s MIJ squiers are still undervalued. Best guitars in their price range when Iwas a kid. 90s Epi LPs were good when Sammick made them. There are early japanese and korean epi casinos, rivieras, 335s etc not the 70s bolt ones but there are set neck ones with fret nibs and stuff that are really fine guitars.

In new stuff? ummm... you can get some passable stuff I guess. Stay away from china apart from the vintage vibe series from 10 years ago... indonesia is sketchy, play before pay. Some of the indonesian guitars start out good enough but deteriorate on the ocean voyage to the USA. They absorb moisture, dry back out, and it seems like there's bad fret work. For awhile though every sub-korean guitar from fender and epi needed fret dressing but its getting better. This was never a problem in the past.

Also, in case you haven't already, try searching Equipboard for different Epiphones and Squier models to see which ones are confirmed to be used by artists more or less making a good living from music.

off top of my head:

Josh Homme

Ezra Koenig

Joe Dart

The postings may or may not give you some clues at to which era their Epiphone or Squier is from, but it's a start.