In the terminology of the antiques and art world, “History Detectives” probes the provenance of various objects, taking full advantage of the concentration of information on the Internet as well as tracking down people who may be able to authenticate the items.

If there’s anything amiss with the first “History Detectives” episode of the season, which airs on many PBS stations but is pre-empted for pledge period programming on KQED, it may be that it opens with the biggest of its three cases: whether a 1964 Stratocaster electric guitar with a sunburst design is the instrument used by Bob Dylan when he took to the stage of Newport Folk Festival in July 1965 and, instead of performing his acoustic signature songs, plugged in and changed the course of American pop music forever.

The instrument is owned by a woman named Dawn Peterson, whose late father was said to have been a pilot for several acts in the ’60s, including Peter, Paul and Mary, the Band and Dylan himself.

To determine whether the guitar was Dylan’s, “History” hosts Elyse Luray and Wes Cowan talk to a Dylan expert at Rolling Stone, a former road manager for the band, and a guitar expert in Rochester, N.Y., who carefully compares blown-up photographs of Dylan performing at Newport with the actual guitar, going so far as to see if the wood grain in the body and neck of the guitar matches.

The season premiere sticks with rock music history with two other investigations, one involving a photograph and a room service menu from Miami’s Deauville Hotel, where the Beatles performed in 1964.