in the early 1970s, matsumoku began to manufacture epiphone instruments in japan with the production and distribution being managed by aria, in cooperation with gibson. at this time, epiphone ceased production of all of its traditional designs and began manufacturing markedly less expensive guitars, many of which had less traditional bolt-on style necks and unspecified wood types. some of these guitars had similar body shapes to traditional epiphone and gibson designs but had different names while other models retained certain model designations, such as the ft (flat top) guitars. construction of these guitars differed greatly from past epiphone models. for the first several years of production in japan, epiphone guitars were actually rebranded designs already produced by the matsumoku company.