Just about the coolest and most interesting instrument to come out of the 1960's from one of the period's most interesting and innovative brands.

The Danelectro company founder Nat Daniels developed the Coral Sitar with friend and creative ally Vincent Bell, a well-regarded New York session player.

Produced under Danelectro's "Coral" brand name, Bell's design was effectively an electric guitar modified to sound more like a sitar. The key to this was the 'sitarmatic' bridge developed by Bell and Daniels for the traditional six strings giving the guitar a unique sound in itself, combined with a set of 13 drone strings on the bass side of the body, which, according to the owner's manual respond to the vibrations of the main strings transmitted through the sitar body. The sitar features three wonderful sounding Danelectro 'lipstick' pickups (two for the played strings, one for the drones), independent volume and tone controls for each pickup, a set of Kluson Deluxe tuners and a floating pickguard with the Vincent Bell Signature logo. The instrument is finished in a striking textured crackle red finish called textured Bombay Red.

Coral and Danelectro ceased making guitars in 1969 meaning original examples were only produced for a few years in the late 60's. Our example is in good original condition, plays well with no issues and still has its floating pickguard.

The real value of the original Coral Sitar is in the recording studio, with the model being used by artists as diverse as the Motown Studio to Van Halen. Our example has been previously owned by both Adrian Utley of Portishead and Wayne Hussey of The Mission.

The guitar comes with the photographed non-original but good condition late sixties Gibson Firebird case and a letter of provenance from Adrian Utley.