"it was his unit, he could do anything with it he wanted. When it comes to a show piece, it is great. Think of it this way, you could paint it blue, period, it would look good, friends would come over and say it look nice. Restore, brass plate, paint it like the one you posted and friends would come over and marvel as the detail you took to make it look as good as the one in the picture above."
...here's my 2 cents: just as the owner could do anything he wanted, we're allowed to have whatever opinion we want about that restoration...and I agree with Enrico...if he's got a picture of the piece as it left the factory - and it's got oil company colors, logos, etc...well, how often do we get that much authentic information to guide us as to how the piece originally looked?...take advantage of that rare opportunity, do it right...the same non-collector people who would marvel at brass plating of parts that weren't ever brass plated would probably look at an Ande Rooney sign and marvel at it as well (don't believe me?...look on eBay sometime and count the many careless people listing fakes and adamantly proclaiming them 'old')...99% of people don't know the difference, they just see an old pump and say 'neato', and the next second they're wondering who's going to get voted off Survivor this week, whether Lite beer 'tastes great' or is 'less filling', or trying to decide between Chili's or Applebee's for dinner...I'd rather aspire to impress the 1% who could look at the catalog photo and at the correctly restored lubester and say, 'man - you went to a lot of trouble to make that thing look exactly like it did back in the day', and who can tell the difference between a restoration and a hot-rod...
...yeah - he can do whatever he wants...he could melt it down into slag and make sculpture out of it, but I don't think anyone here would think that was right, either...but if you follow the logic of 'it's his and he can do whatever he wants' the conclusion is you can't find fault in that either...
...Enrico - my vote is for a restoration as close as humanly possible to the catalog image...buy a color copy from Jack, have it framed and hang it on the wall next to the restored lubester...the average person will still be impressed and move on, but the experienced collector will actually appreciate it...
