Finally watched the video from the link in the first post. George really seems to be doing the hard sell. He states that it's the first Stratocaster every other sentence, but the copy in the book states that it is know to be from the first production run and is "perhaps" the first. So Richard Smith who owned it and was friends with Leo wouldn't state that it was the first, but Gruhn will...flatly and repeatedly. I know the man knows his stuff, but I also know he's among the main reasons that the vintage guitar craze ever took off. He's bought literally tons of guitars low and sold them all very high as his rhetoric has increased the perceived value of endless amounts of instruments.
Just to clarify, I mean rhetoric in the "the art or skill of speaking or writing formally and effectively especially as a way to persuade or influence people" way, not necessarily the "language that is intended to influence people and that may not be honest or reasonable" way. He is after all a salesman and the legacy of the types of instruments that he deals in is near pointless to dispute. The actual value of those instruments is, however, another story.