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Can someone advise me if the door latch and striker area of a 41 was originally painted or not. I have looked at several photos and see about half of them painted. My guess is they should not be painted.Thank you.

I had an original 1937 120 and IIRC the door latches and strikers were unpainted and had a flat gray surface like pewter or lead (the car was black.) The sales brochure for the 1937 Six and 120 on this site has two depictions with the doors open and the strikers on the "B" pillars are lighter than the cars' finishes. Unfortunately the 1941 brochure doesn't have such depictions. I'm confident that Packard wouldn't have changed that in the ensuing four years. From a practical standpoint, paint on these items would be quickly rubbed off and look unsightly where the latches contact the strikers as the doors are opened and closed.

No definitive source for information but I doubt very much that they were painted, that's probably the result of a repaint without taking time to mask or remove the hardware - your car wasn't originally blue, right? For some postwar years the latches and strikers on the senior cars were chromed, the junior models were dull metal finish, perhaps Parkerized or a similar metal treatment; I don't know if this distinction extended back to the prewar seniors but surely someone here will know with certainty. Door latch hardware on the 1941 180 sport broughams was chrome plated.

Both my 1941 160 and 120 have chrome plated strikers and latches.

FWIW I have attached a PMCC factory photo of a 1940 Club Coupe with plated parts.

Hope this helps.

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Resto Suggestion: If you go to PAC and ask a roster keeper and you don't get an answer, what's a person to do? If no one here has an answer either you're SOL, left to your own research/judgement.
By parallel, I was able to buy an "authenticity manual" used to judge for my CAD from CLC. It's by no means complete but answer alot of the usual questions like this.
A similar document for year class Packards would be a good undertaking and moneymaker for the PAC. They must have some sort of sheet or your at the mercy of the GODs => Good Old Dogs come judgement day. It needs to happen before it's too late. Alot of the expertise is in the -genarian categories.