I'm not sure about "Day 1 new"...but "restored" should mean pretty damn close to that. I always try to make a machine look better than factory when I'm doing a restoration. But I have lines I won't cross. One example is that greyish corrosion you find on the metal of Gottlieb EM games. I can clean and polish all I want, but that stuff seldom goes away. Should I send it out to be chromed? Aw, hell, no! Some people chrome their under-playfield metals, and I really think that's overkill. As long as everything is cleaned up, repainted and redecaled, etc., the game is fully restored. And that means that you stripped the game down to wood and wire. None of this masking off the lower inside half of your cabinet bullshit when you're sanding and painting.

I've tried all that stuff, along with a bench buffer as well. There's just a point where it makes no sense to me to be spending that much time on the stuff under the playfield. Switch replacements, etc....of course. But shiny metal under there doesn't improve the gameplay.

You don't think chrome plating a coil bracket is a little over the top? I'd replace it before I'd plate it...it's cheaper.