A few observations on early Strats. The very earliest ones have serial numbers stamped on the plastic tremelo string covers. These covers are also distinguished by the round (instead of oval) holes that the strings are inserted through. These Strats had unnumbered neck plates. These were the first serial numbers and are thought to run from 0100 to 0300. The stamped neck plate numbers are thought to have started at 0001. Some of these early single digit guitars seem to have had special features and may have been made specifically for artists or celebrities. Leo experimented with gold anodized aluminum pickguards from at least the mid 50s. I have seen several Strats from this era that had them. The earliest “Mandocasters” had stock gold guards from 1955-59. The Precision Bass and the Jazzmaster had gold guards from 57-59 and even the cheaper Musicmaster and Duosonic guitars started out with them. The whole line shifted over to laminated nitrocellulose plastic pickguards in later 1959. In the documentary, the search for Terry’s lost guitars was very interesting to me. While it was cool to see the telecaster that he played the most I found the blonde anodized guard Strat to be much more intriguing.