I have this debate all the time with myself. The 49 Humber has "patina"....and while I appreciate it it kind of bothers me that it used to be a spectacular blue and most of that is now gone (and what is left flakes off if you look at it sideways). I have left it alone, and clean and wax it, but I bought a set of pretty decent repro decals just in case.....The 52 Paff on the other hand had been repainted by the original owner, and while it might have been nice to retain that history, he painted everything because he didn't like rust....so only after stripping did I find a number of different colours over the years, chrome stays and fork ends, chrome fork crown, and a number of details I have tried to retain/bring back as I did repaint it in its original colour. (Glad to hear Italian paint tends to chip - the paint I used looks great but is awfully soft, even after 3 months of curing. It'll be patina'd soon enough!)