Like Hamlet once said, "To restore or not restore, that's the question!"
I did talk to the owner about this, he's an advanced collector and knows the pros and cons. I believe the deciding factor was that the gun had been wiped with large amounts of cold blue, you can't really see that in the pictures but it was obvious when you looked at it in person. It even smelled like Birchwood Casey's Perma Blue, so we both agreed that that it would be better off restored.