From the mane plates on my cars, plus others I've seen from other manufacturers, IF the paint was sprayed, as they age and the paint deteriorates, you CAN see from which direction the spray gun was placed as the parts were sprayed. Especially on items which had sharp edges on them. This is especially common on GM/Chevy emblems! Paint did not get all the way to the bottom of the color divisions on all sides. Which is how you can tell from which direction the part was moving toward the spray gun.
In the case of the Chrysler nameplates, I have seen brush marks in the satin black areas! Upon much closer inspection of the entire item, I could then see more brush marks in them. Leading me to believe they were BRUSHED rather than sprayed. IF they had been sprayed, with the script, it would have taken a good bit of time to do all of the masking and then not get any on the backside of the item.
As to the "gold", there is a "light brass" color that looks somewhat "gold", but is not.
Additionally, there is a clear chemical one can put onto chrome to make it appear gold. In the past, when a Cadillac customer wanted a "gold package" on the new Cadillac, the dealer would send the car to a trim shop to get the new set of emblems installed (back when they were all mechanically installed). In later times, with stick-on plastic emblems, the fluid was just painted onto the chromed-plastic emblems while they were still stuck-onto the car. No taping-off required.
The other thing that might not be noticed is that if you lookk at a Chrysler production outside door handle, under fluorescent lighting, you can see the curved sand scratches under the chrome plating itself. Just like sand scratches under paint. Once I saw that, I then noticed that GM door handles are that way too. Have not looked at Fords. Those abrasive scratches are how you tell an OEM handle from a re-chromed handle! As the re-chrome is completely smooth and the "color of chrome" is just a bit brighter than the OEM color of chrome, by observation. Things you will not notice until you put the two items side by side or know what you are looking at.
Back to the original question . . . I suspect the newly-chromed pot metal nameplate was then dipped into a shallow layer of "gold-like" liquid, to get the finish-surface "golded". When that dried, then the satin black was applied with a medium-width brush, by hand. Not always neatly, either, as long as the sides were "satin black". A satin black that sometimes had some brush marks that were not always neat around the edges and could have some "light streaks" from brush marks in it. Any black that got to the back of the emblem was cleaned off quickly.
Just what I figured out over the years or looking at Chrysler and GM/Chevy emblems and name plates.
Enjoy!
CBODY67
