Getting caught up on some emails that I'd missed. Just to clarify, both of my A-250's and my A-200 have gold plated hardware as you might expect. My A-200 has a crank with a tiger striped copper / black finish, which naturally is not original to that machine. I think the confusion came in by combining photos of an early DD horn and other parts on the same page as the photos of the A-250 early / late details. Think of these as two different sets of photos, as they are from two different sources. Best, Andy