This historic sitar was purchased by its previous owner sometimes in the mid-1970s in Kabul/Afghanistan. At that time it was already considered very old as per the salesmans information. Thereafter it became part of a small local museum in southern Germany where it was on display from 1985-2017. I nicknamed the instrument Kabul sitar as that is the only known reference. It is probably +/- 110 years old. That is all I know about its history. This sitar might be from the first generation of sitars with a full set of taraf strings and it is certainly one of the oldest sitars on the planet in playable condition. It has a rather tiny tumba but its scale lenght is the same as on modern sitars. Another „ancient“ feature are the unusual frets which have become obsolete since many decades. A huge thanks to Mr. Kees Verbeek for making four completely new frets for me from scratch! The sitar was completely restored by Klaas Janssens at sitarfactory/Belgium in 2024/25. Check out his report here.

SPECIFICATION	MEASUREMENT
Total length	126.5 cm
Scale length	88.3 cm
Bridge height	2.2 cm
String height over last fret	11 mm
Neck width	7.9 cm
Tabli diameter	23.8 cm
Toomba circumference	79.8 cm
Weight	1.36 kg
Meend range (at C# tuning)	S → m ; P → S (higher)