Rickenbacker brought the first viable electric guitar to market in 1932. Moreover, it’s horseshoe-shaped pickup was the only pre-WWII pickup from any maker that, to today’s ears, still needs no improvement.

Surprisingly, though, the company all but ignored the “Spanish style” electric until 1953, when founder Adolph Rickenbacker sold his share to F.C. Hall. Hall immediately switched focus from the fading Hawaiian models to the new solidbodies and introduced the Combo 800 and 600 in 1954.

They featured a carved top, like the Gibson Les Paul that preceded them by two years, but with a more pronounced “lip” that would come to be known as the “German carve”. The term was accurate; Roger Rossmeisl, the son of a German guitarmaker, brought it to Rickenbacker in 1954.

The Combo 800, with a double-coil pickup, and the Combo 600, with a single-coil horseshoe, lasted only until 1959, giving way to thinner bodies with more dramatic cutaway lines, but the German carve became a Rickenbacker signature feature on hollow as well as solidbody models.