Adolph Rickenbacker

Adolph Rickenbacher, Adolph Rickenbacker ( born April 1, 1887 in Basel, † March 1976 in Los Angeles ) was a Swiss- American inventor and entrepreneur. Rickenbacher was involved in the early 1930s in the U.S. as a design engineer instrumental in the invention and production of the first series-produced electrically amplified guitar. According to him, the U.S. musical instrument manufacturer Rickenbacker is named since the 1950s.

Life and work

Adolph Rickenbacher emigrated after the early death of his coming from Zeglingen in the Basel area parents to the United States and settled in Los Angeles, California in 1918. There he founded with business partners in 1925, the Rickenbacher Manufacturing Company. The company showed her metal and bakelite components and thus supplied among other things, musical instrument manufacturers for the construction of National Resonator.

Together with the guitarist and inventor George Beauchamp (1899-1941) developed Rickenbacher 1931 an electromagnetic pickup and the first electric guitar, lap steel guitar, the Rickenbacker Frying Pan. In 1931 Rickenbacher and Beauchamp founded the company Ro - Pat- In, later renamed the Electro String Instrument Corporation. Adolph Rickenbacher changed his last name in the 1930s for American acting Rickenbacker. It is believed that Rickenbacher wanted to build on the popularity of his cousin Eddie Rickenbacker, who was a famous racer and flying ace of the First World War in the United States. In private circles Adolph continued to use the last name Rickenbacher. In 1953 Rickenbacher sold at the age of 66 years, the Electro String Company and the rights to the brand name Rickenbacker and went into retirement. The company was renamed Rickenbacker International Corporation and provides under this brand to the present day electric guitars and basses here. Rickenbacher was also retired in the industry of music instrument maker connected and died in 1976 at the age of 88 years in Los Angeles.

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