Door latch and striker original finish?

[Lee H]

Looking for the original finish that was on the door latch and the striker for my 72. After several cheapo repaints in the past it's hard to tell but the latch appears to be black phosphate and the striker and shims appear to be zinc under body color. How about the end gate linkage? Thanks much, Lee

[FirstOwner69]

The striker (on the body) was black phosphate. I think the shims were also. The latch (on the door) appeared to be cad plated. My tailgate straps appear to be cad plated. However, I THINK they may have been painted when I bought the truck new and the paint may have flaked off due to the plating. I'm curious too and would like someone to chime in.

[med.bronze]

because I tend to enjoy and appreciate the "original" side of things I have done alot of study,picture and note taking on small things like this. The striker on the cab on every low mileage original pickup I have seen was painted black and the shims were gray phosphate. I am sure there are pickups with strikers that were phosphate as well. The door side was cad plated as well as the tailgate parts but the tailgate parts were painted the body color. Just my 2 cents

[Lee H]

Thanks for the feed back guys. I figured that since my truck is totally taken apart now is the time to get the original finish on as much as possible. After doing frame offs on two mid year Corvettes and one Camaro I know that the finishes very by the original equipment manufacturer. I have found evidence that, including NOS (real NOS, not the bar coded stuff) examples, that the door latches where black phosphate, the strikers where cad or zinc and sometimes painted body color, same with the end gate linkage.