OK, I did my research in my books... This will be somewhat confusing due to the fact that the US Navy considers it's yellow to be "Gold" as in Blue & Gold.

The first Blue Angels airplane, the Hellcat, had metalic gold lettering on the side painted by the Angels crew. That is to say that the large block lettering "US NAVY" was done in gold leaf as well as the fin numbers.

Afterwards, Grumman delivered Blue Angels F8F Bearcat's with a new blue color known as "Angels Blue". It's decribed as lighter than the Sea Blue used at the time and darker than the current Blue Angels paint. Grumman also painted the "US NAVY" in large block letters. This was described as done in gold. I suspect very likely they are speaking of Navy gold meaning the yellow paint. Then afterwards at some point in time the gold script letters "Blue Angels" was added to the scheme on the cowl sides. I suspect this was also done in gold (yellow) and not the gold leaf as I mentioned in an earlier post.

My other book calls the leading edge trim, "unique leading edge stripes" which lead me to think that maybe they were painted on. Close examination proves that while not wrong it is misleading to say stripes as they are poished aluminum and lack any paint although they look like stripes.

Thats all I have for now. Good luck.