Rickenbacker International Corporation, also known as Rickenbacker, is an electric and bass guitar manufacturer based in Santa Ana, California. In 1932, the company became the world's first to produce electric guitars and continues to produce a range of electric and bass guitars to this day.

The company was founded in 1931 as the Ro-Pat-In Corporation (ElectRo-Patent-Instruments) by Adolph Rickenbacher and George Beauchamp in order to sell electric Hawaiian guitars. These instruments had been designed by Beauchamp, assisted at the National String Instruments Corporation by Paul Barth and Harry Watson. They chose the brand name Rickenbacher (later changed to Rickenbacker), though early examples bear the brand name Electro.

Nicknamed "frying pans" because of their long necks and circular bodies, the instruments were the first solid-bodied electric guitars, though they were a lap-steel type. They had pickups with a pair of horseshoe magnets that arched over the strings. By the time production ceased in 1939, several thousand "frying pans" had been produced.

Adolph Rickenbacker (April 1, 1886 – March 1976) was a Swiss-American who co-founded the Rickenbacker guitar company along with George Beauchamp and Paul Barth.

Adolf Rickenbacker was born in Switzerland. He emigrated to the United States with older relatives after his parents died, settling in Wisconsin. He moved to southern California as a young man. He later Anglicized his name to Adolph Rickenbacker to capitalize on the popularity of his distant cousin, America's top Flying Ace Eddie Rickenbacker.

Starting in the late 1920s, his Rickenbacker Manufacturing Company made metal bodies for the National String Instrument Corporation. Through this connection, he met George Beauchamp and Paul Barth, and in 1931 they founded the Ro-Pat-In Company. In 1932 they produced the first cast aluminum versions of the lap steel guitar. Two years later the company was renamed the Electro String Instrument Corporation. By the time production ceased in 1939, about 2,700 Frying Pan guitars had been produced.