Hydra-Glide on fork tin

I was just doing some close up inspection on factory photos. I find an assembly line photo of 1949 models from April 1949 that clearly show the Hydra-Glide on the stainless fork tin. However I am looking at a December 1949 photo of a 1950 Police bike that has the black painted steel tin WITHOUT Hydra-Glide on it. My summation would be that the Hydra-Glide was added to the stainless tins during the 1949 production run but left over black tins without it were used during 1950 as well. My photo of the 1951 Police model with the black tin has Hydra-Glide on it.

I have seen two 50 models, both reported to be unmolested originals with plain stainless covers. A related question, when did the straight bar under the headlight first appear?

amklyde.
I would doubt that they would go back to plain stainless after they Hydra-Glide was added. All the 1950 photos I have show the Hydra-Glide tin.
Kinda reminds me about the one owner 1936 EL I looked at a few years ago. The owners family told me it was 100% original and nothing had ever been changed. For the most part they were correct, excep the frame, fork and front fender were 1941 type. One family membered that during WWII the owner had been involved in a wreck and the bike was repaired by the dealer. Who used genuine parts. The parts were genuine but not correct 1936 parts.

I am not sure what you mean by straight bar UNDER the headlight.

Chris, I know what you mean about owner statements. One of the machines I saw was a resto I looked at at the Wauseon, the owner telling me he was sure that it was original to the machine, original paint before the resto and never been apart, but who knows. The other was a machine I saw on the road, absolutely perfect appearing low mileage original,family history never wrecked etc. The bar I am refering to is the same width as the bars above, only an inch or two long, directly below the dished area for headlamp clearance. Not sure when they were originaly mounted but 53 and 54 models all seem to have it.

One bad thing about the factory photos is they are mostly full left or right side shots. I onlu have three that show the front of the tin. one is a prototype 1954, which is actually a 1952. The 1953 and 1955 do not have a bar under the headlamp in any of my photos