Allan Gittler (1928-2003) is best known for his minimalist fishbone style guitars, made entirely of stainless steel. He handmade 60 of them in New York in the mid 1970s to early 1980s. Gittler was originally a jazz guitarist in New York, but also composed, and even wrote and produced a film (Parachute to Paradise). His work as a film editor led to the invention a number of photographic devices.

Gittler emigrated to Israel, settling in Hebron, and changed his name to Avraham Bar Rashi. licensed the design to a local company in Kiryat Bialik called Astron Engineer Enterprises LTD. They computer-machined around 500 more of these instruments, adding a small plastic body to Gittler's design.

Gittler was unhappy with these Israeli made models, and felt they corrupted his original design. He then decided to design the simplest guitar possible, without the aid of big business. This led to his wing-nut and plywood models, experiments in plywood, and sometimes MDF. These experiments led to a solid mahogany instrument, using only 12 pieces of identical hardware that serve as nut, bridge, and tuner.

The Gittler brand was relaunched by Russ Rubman in 2013 and currently offers the original style Gittler guitar in titanium as well as a bass and electric violin.