What Shrapnel said. You have a $500 (+-) gun and put $$$ in it to restore, you then have a $400 gun. IMO a little "age" looks good on a classic.
Yes, +2.
It's your gun, you can do what you want. But frankly, honest condition/age is more valuable, and more rewarding to enjoy, than a refinished gun 99.9% of the time. They are not classic cars you can just repaint and it looks like "new"; because it won't. Akin to why you wouldn't refinish a historical artifact or museum piece, really.
For example, both a buddy and I passed on a nicely refinished LC Smith, 12ga, 28", F/M, about two months ago. Almost bought knee-jerk on principle because it was priced at... $500. But a refinish is a refinish. That LC Smith "was" a nice gun, now it's basically a rainy day gun, honestly. I was busy trying to choke down the price on the shotgun I did get, so an extra 500 for another rainy day gun wasn't in the cards that day.
Would encourage you to, if nothing else, delay refinishing it for a year or two, shoot/hunt it as is, and reconsider the question then.
