17 Facts About Rickenbacker

Rickenbacker International Corporation is a string instrument manufacturer based in Santa Ana, California.

Rickenbacker first conceived of a guitar fitted with a phonograph-like amplifying horn.

Rickenbacker approached inventor and violin-maker John Dopyera, who made a prototype that was, by all accounts, a failure.

Rickenbacker made Spanish and Hawaiian style tri-cone guitars as well as four-string tenor guitars, mandolins, and ukuleles.

Adolph Rickenbacker became a shareholder in National and, with the assistance of his Rickenbacker Manufacturing Company, National boosted production to fifty guitars a day.

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Rickenbacker subsequently formed the Dobro Manufacturing Corporation, later called Dobro Corporation, Ltd, and began to manufacture his own line of resonator-equipped instruments.

In 1934 the name of "Rickenbacker" was added in honor of the company's principal partner, Adolph Rickenbacker.

In 1956, Rickenbacker introduced two instruments with the "neck through body" construction that became a standard feature of many of the company's products, including the Combo 400 guitar, the model 4000 bass, and, later, the 600 series.

In 1963, Rickenbacker developed an electric twelve-string guitar with an innovative headstock design that fit all twelve machine heads onto a standard-length headstock by mounting alternate pairs of machine heads at right-angles to each other.

Rickenbacker eventually had the guitar's natural alder body refinished in black, and made other modifications, including adding a Bigsby vibrato tailpiece and regularly changing the control knobs.

Rickenbacker made two new 325s for Lennon and shipped them to him while the Beatles were in Miami Beach, Florida, on the same 1964 visit to the United States: a one-off custom 12-string 325 model and an updated six-string model with modified electronics and vibrato.

Rickenbacker used this newer six-string model on the Beatles' sequentially "second" appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Rickenbacker basses remained popular through the 1970s and beyond.

Rickenbacker has produced a number of uniquely designed and distinctively trimmed acoustic guitars.

In late 2006, Rickenbacker gave a license to build Rickenbacker-branded acoustics to Paul Wilczynski, a luthier with a workshop in San Francisco, California.

Rickenbacker continued to offer all eight models of the Rickenbacker flat top guitar line, building each instrument to order, until his license expired on February 1,2013.

Rickenbacker are known for their proactive approach to preventing the sale of counterfeits of their instruments.