Refinishing a FN49, yes or no?

[TNERDoc]

I have recently acquired a FN49 Luxemborg and it appears to have its original finish on the metal.In other words a black painted finish.This has worn off on several places, most noticeable on the magazine housing.I was thinking about getting it refinished by the local smith who built my FALs. He does very nice blueing. The question is, what is the proper etiquette(had to look up the spelling)for an old rifle such as this.All numbers match.Is it best to leave it just as is? Is it better to refinish with original looking paint, or just go ahead and blue it so it will look very nice, but not original.Is this just a matter of personal taste? I have no plans to sell it, but don't want to decrease its value. Opinions?

[Goose52]

If it's all matching - a non-original finish, or an obvious re-finish, will decrease it's value to a collector. However, it will still have value as a "shooter" and there are lots of folks out there that are not collectors per se, but shooters and will still pay a fair piece of change for ANY 30-06 FN-49 and may even pay a premium if it "looks purdy" . . . original finish or not.

In general, though, these are collector rifles and should be left in "collectible" condition. If your rifle is in any reasonable condition, I would leave it as is.

On the other end of the spectrum, I just bought an Egyptian FN-49 for $150 that was a Century rebuild, had a cracked reproduction stock, and not a single serial number matches. As far as I'm concerned, all bets are off on this rifle and as of now the stock is being glued up and refinished, I'm restoring all of the burred screwheads for the furniture and guard screws, last night I tinkered with the rear sight assembly to get it to work and restored the windage screws, I'm halfway through painting all of the furniture, and will be painting the rest of the rifle over the next few weeks. The only way that this rifle would have had ANY collector value whatsoever is if it was the last surviving example of an FN-49 on the planet . . . :D

Goose

[ April 03, 2002: Message edited by: Goose52 ]