Danelectro Coral Sitar 3S19

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.

Andy Summers has a Coral electric sitar in his guitar collection. He once tried the real Sitar in 1980 while The Police stayed in India for a concert, so it seems possible his encounter with the instrument led to the purchase of the Coral Sitar afterwards. It was listed amongst the extensive Ghost In The Machine tour program equipment list in 1981 - but as per fanzines around that time this is most likely the list of gear shipped by The Police to Montserrat for the recording of Ghost. A photo of Andy exists from the recording sessions wearing studio headphones and playing this guitar.