I have seen 2-3 216s still wearing some original paint. In all cases it was a very dark, almost charcoal, similar to the pics that Tiny posted.
JW, everything you said makes very good sense. My '53 engine (swapped into my '51 as a short block way back then) was definitely very close to the pic I posted. I found 3 or 4 spots on the engine that were dang close to the JC paint color I used. I've never seen one as dark as what Tiny posted, but haven't seen that many. The Korean war effort may have dried up quite a bit of that surplus paint you mentioned, and GM may have standardized by 53.
[on edit] I just noticed from looking at Tiny's pics that I should have painted my balancer the same color as the engine. I painted it black before reinstalling. I guess I'm gonna get docked some points.
