I believe nickel plating is cheaper because you nickel plate than chrome over that.I like the look of chrome myself but thats all subjective.

Regardless of cost, most early plating was nickel (at least for most Gottlieb games I've owned). Mike Chestnut (Horsepower Unlimited) has done a great job for myself and many others. He's pretty busy, so if you use him, make sure you allow turn around time.

For Gottlieb EM games the plating was nickel. Coin doors, coin bezels, playfield parts, playfield glass receiver channel, top side screws, And nickel is the last step before they apply chrome when chrome plating. At least that's the way that Mike Chestnut explained it to me.

I made the mistake of having some parts for my Gottlieb EM games replated in chrome by Mike. While they came out amazing (Mike's work is top notch and he is my single source go to guy) the chrome stood out as non original. My eyes were drawn to it and a friend of mine noticed it immediately. I wanted original appearance. Lesson learned.

I actually brought these parts back to Mike last month when we were at the Keller bash in St. Charles and he is going to strip and refinish these in nickel.

Mike commented more than once how the chrome is more durable but for a game that is going to be cared for nickel plating will be just fine.

I re-plate if electroplated parts are rusty or tarnished. It is especially good for older door parts. I use this kit and buy extra solution every once and a while.
http://www.eastwood.com/eastwood-s-tin-zinc-electroplating-system.html

Examples below were parts that were either a black finish and rusty or previously plated and are now rusty. I use a the dremel and clean the heck out of them after soaking the part overnight in evaporust.

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One thing I don't understand is how do these parts, such as coin doors rust if they are plated? Why is it that the side rails don't seem to rust as readily? You don't see rust on side rails very often.

Could it be that peoples hands are all over these coin door parts?

More than on the side rails?

JR, If you are talking about metal era side rails, they were made from stainless steel, which is much more resistant to rust than other plating (nickel or chrome) I have seen pitting on stainless, but it takes a lot of prolonged moisture to make that happen. Notice those stainless coin doors have very little problem with rust.

First post, yes no avatar yet. But being a plater for over 30 years and still doing it now, it gives me something to weigh in on. If the chrome looks too bright then have them plate dull nickel first (no brightener). You build up the nickel thickness with dull nickel for rust prevention then hit it with a short time of bright nickel.
There is two kinds of chrome plating that I have worked with. Hexavalent and trivalent. Hex is for stuff like rims, bumpers. Tri is for toasters or decorative stuff. Hex will eat the septum separating your nostrils and you have the fun of them repairing the missing part.
I have worked in a captive shop and now a job shop, but never restoration which I can do but prepping the work isn't my forte. And please spell nickel, n i c k e l.
The inside of coin doors don't look nickel plated to me. Maybe an alkaline tin.

Yeah, I thought they might be stainless steel, but they're still magnetic, right? Higher grade stainless is non-magnetic. Lockdown bars must be stainless as well, because you don't see rust on them very often. But still, I would think plating would protect steel from rusting, since nickel itself doesn't rust. It must be a very, very thin coating. Come to think of it though, chrome bumpers on older cars do rust as well. I guess plating isn't very good rust protection for steel over the long haul.

Thanks for the information. Any other tips you can lend on the subject are appreciated.

By no means is this a jab at pbresource. But I thought this as well on a restore that i did earlier this year. I had several playfield parts that were plated and had pitted over time. I checked with some platers and then saw that PBR had new ones in stock at a fraction of the cost. SO i went that route. Got the parts, and then had to send them to be plated. Just because his parts are NOS, does not mean that they are perfect. plated parts can rust on his shelves just like they do on our games