Quoted from pinheadpierre:

I have to disagree with approaches that attempt to knock down the gloss for an EM. I remember what they looked like new. They were glossy and well saturated. The trouble is that the lacquer finishes held neither their clarity or gloss for very long. It is also important to consider the available technology at the time. They used industrial lacquer. Cars in the EM era were also painted with lacquer, albeit likely higher quality than was used for pins. I have done several EMs, one with lacquer and the rest with 2pac. The 2pac wins hands down in my book. Water based finishes are what they are: user friendly alternatives which offer less color saturation and somewhat lower gloss as a tradeoff.