A reviewer in one of the motorcycle mags at the time said that the early Commandos looked like they were painted with black tinted shellac.

If you take a few steps down from 'wet' to 'gloss' you can get a high level of shine but you won't end up with a two-tone finish on the front surface of the downtubes due to weathering. It's a problem because powdercoat won't polish like paint. I've tried swirl remover and polishing compounds that are used on aircraft canopies. Black shows like nothing else, never buy a black car unless you have a thing for the smell of carnauba.

Only the thin melt crust of plastic power coat is shiny. Once removed no going back w/o melting heat or another paint cover up to try and match. Only issue to paint over is it takes lots of layers to fill in the depth of powder coat. My coater gave the black power and dangerous solvent to repair Ms Peel powered frame, but told Do Not heat it to melt again just fill in with tiny brush and wax over or makes bigger mark to notice. Peels down tubes get fairly grit blasted but by far most her scars were from me doing repairs and bumping surface 'lightly' with tools or major parts. The gal that did Peel's job sold me on it by taking a hammer to her Harley black swing arm and not leave a mark. Now I realize its was a trick as that's unrealistic to expect impact by square on flat smacks, rather than edges at oblique angles across the finish.

On my factory Combat I just use glossy engine paint or what ever on hand that's black glossy. No longer bother with epoxy like PJI as its no match for me or THE Grit.

yeah i had the frame of my MKIIa powdercoated when I restorecd her 20 years ago, when I picked the frame up from the coaters it was a super finish, wet look immaculate but easily scratched, with the benifit of hind sight two pack paint would be the better choice. A much harder finish that can easily be touched up.