Gittler III #193

In the 60's a man named Allan Gittler had a question that would provoke discussion for decades to come. "What is an electric guitar? Are our solid body guitars clinging too tight to the visual cues of the acoustic instruments that preceded them?" And from this question, the Gittler was born. The original Gittler bore little resemblence to the electric guitars of the time consisting of little more than the truss rod, the frets, and a set of pickups and tuners. In the original run, Gittler had 60 guitars and 3 basses made (all within New York).

In the 80s, Allan moved to Israel, changing his name to Avraham Bar Rashi. Following this move, a local by the name of Julius Benistri was enlisted to produce several more of the original Gittlers before the design was licensed to a company called Astron for production.

Astron then ran a small set of prototypes, dubbed the Gittler II, designed with a small black box to house all the electronics, allowing them to attach a few more connectors, preamps, and other circuitry.

What you see here is a Gittler III, serial number 193. Somewhere near 300 copies were made. Avraham himself found flaws with these copies, but Astron insists there is nothing wrong with their copies of his design.

Included in the Gittler III is an enclosure around the body that provides a more ergonomic method of playing the instrument, as it feels more like a proper neck than a raw truss rod. Also included is a set of preamps that are powered by a 9v battery (or instead by a D-sub-9-pin connector). The guitar features 6 individual pickups, one running parallel to each string, leading to 6 individual trim pots inside the guitar. This allows the user to individually balance each string, giving a very fine control over the output of the instrument. The Gittler III features a standard TS output, but it also allows the user to use the aforementioned D-sub-9-pin to route each individual pickup signal to separate end points. Uniquely, the Gittler III's extremely symmetrical design means the instrument can be easily set up for either Left or Right handed playing. Also for further ergonomics, the Gittler III features a detachable bar with 2 strap buttons on it for the player to play standing up.

Don't pass up this golden opportunity to own a portion of post-modern guitar history.

Note that we are not equipped to properly test the D-sub-9-pin connector, however every other feature of the guitar has been thoroughly tested and proved working.