Yep. Before he signed his contract with Gibson, Les Paul did play an Epiphone guitar (of sorts).

But, as an independent manufacturer, Epiphone (the New York City instrument manufacturer) never produced anything that even remotely resembled Gibson's Les Paul model. Still, this instrument does possess one feature that ties it to the Epiphone tradition. It's the pickups.

When Gibson acquired the Epiphone name in 1957, they also got the existing inventory of parts and instruments as well as templates and tooling for instrument production. This included a number of partially completed guitars. The mini-humbucker is the pickup that Gibson created to fit the pickup trim ring on those partially completed instruments. The first Gibson model to use the mini-humbucker, that was created for the Epiphone line, was the Firebird of the early 60s.

Since 1970, the Epiphone name has been applied to instruments that are manufactured outside of the United States, to the specifications of the Gibson Musical Instruments Corporation. The serial number on this instrument is typical of a scheme that has been used on Epiphone instruments for more than a decade.

The last three digits of this number indicate the sequence number of that instrument on the date of production. The next three digits (from the end), indicate the Julian date of production, and the remaining digit(s) indicate the year of production. This instrument was the 90th instrument produced (by Korean manufacturer U, whoever that is) on the 53rd day of 1998.