Danelectro 3S19 Coral Sitar

The Danelectro Coral Sitar (model 3S19) is an electric sitar from 1967, manufactured as one of the products from the Coral line of the Danelectro company. Studio guitarist Vincent Bell came up with this six-stringed instrument, which is fundamentally an electric guitar with an elongated bridge for buzz and twanginess, hence resembling the sound of a sitar. In addition to that there's also a second set of 13 strings tuned like on an auto-harp, intended to be used like sympathetic strings on a real sitar to drone over what's played on the main guitar.

Steve Hackett played the Coral Sitar during his career with Genesis, particularly during the Selling England By The Pound era in 1973-74. "I Know What I Like" (Genesis' first charting single) was based around a riff by Steve on the Sitar, which he developed during jams with Phil Collins. The Sitar (fed through a fuzz box and a Leslie speaker) contributes to the overall psychedelic rock sound, and also hinting towards its Beatles-esque origins (i.e. "Norman Wood"). Apparently this Electric Sitar was Mike Rutherford's, which he bought around the same time as the Microfrets 6-string bass in New York.