🚀 go-pugleaf

Is there anyway to achive the following, easily?  I have quite a few
TDateTimePickers that are used to represent dates read in from a Database.
When the values are read in from the database, the DateTimePickers are set
to represent them, when the user changes the data, the values of the
DateTimePickers as the basis of the update SQL statement.

Now the problems is that quite often there are no initial value value in the
database so I can't assign the dtp a value, other than a 'blind-date'
(31/12/1899 etc...).  Then when the user changes some of the data, I check
to see if tha value of the dtp is the 'blind-date' and if so I don't save
it.  This all works fine except it looks crap and deseving.  What I want to
try and do is (I know I can do this with a Panel) try and over-ride some
Paint method, and if the Date property is equal to the 'blaind-date' don't
display any value i.e. make it blank.  Is there any way to achive this
without having to create my own custome VCL?

Thanks in advance,

K