We held a contest a while back here on The Woodwind Forum. First Prize was a mint condition Mark VII. Second Prize was two mint condition Mark VII's. Third Prize was that you got three of them, with the stipulation that you had to play them regularly...
I didn't like the VII. It played well in the music store at a low volume, the intonation was better than the VI, and it had a high F# key (I was playing in a guitar band so that meant E and A concert were favorite keys). Got it on stage, and couldn't over-blow it to make it sound nasty. Eventually traded it in for the Couf which I dearly loved.
Most likely, it was not the Florida environmental folks that made your shop stop refinishing horns, but rather your local shop's unwillingness to properly dispose of the solvents used in the process. The car folks are just skating on the regulation, pure and simple. So, at least your shop is bothering to follow the rules.
The owner, who was in her 70s at the time (ran the shop until her late 90s) said the room to keep the lacquer vapors in would cost her over a million dollars, and she would not be able to pay that off before she died. I checked around, and nobody else was doing it.
The car painters do it in the open air. Go figure.
All this talk I read about not re-lacquering your horns because it will ruin your tone doesn't affect me. I could never tell the difference in tone, Stan Getz never played a ratty looking sax (great tone), and even if there is a slight difference in tone, the audience won't know. And a green sax is simply not a pleasure to play. So for me, lacquer is better. Hopefully nickel plated after engraving will be even better. BTW, I love the MacSax almost as much as my Couf and much better than the gold plated Grassi. It's been too long to compare it to my VI, but I'd say it was at least close, and the intonation is excellent on the Mac (something the VI wasn't great at).
I write aftermarket style and fake disks for the auto-accompaniment program, Band-in-a-Box. Quite a few years ago, someone traded some of my software for an ancient alto sax (late 1800s). I got the sax in the mail, and it was nickel plated and still looked extremely good. It didn't play well though, pads were worn, but not too many leaks and intonation was terrible. Since I have a nice alto, I didn't need it so I sold it to a collector of old things.
I don't know what kind of an environment the nickel sax was in, but it looked good for being almost 100 years old, so I'm hoping my MacSax lasts that long.
BTW, I tried Brasso on my Couf when it first started to corrode, but it was impossible to gig and keep up with. But it had a tone that was bigger and bolder than my VI and light years better than the VII.
I since sold it to a person with an electronic cleaner who wanted to learn sax repair. He sent some pictures and he cleaned it up rather nicely, but you can see where the problems will come back. (pic attached)
He loves the tone and is happy with it. I'm happy the horn is having a new life!!! I loved that horn.
Notes ♫