This is a great topic,and yes I would say its a 50/50 split. But I would restore them. Here is a great story why. This is on The 73 restoration of yankee stadium. In my town a company called United house wrecking bought up about 20,000 yes 20,000 of the yankee seats and were selling them for between 5-10 dollars each. 10 if you wanted a double pair. Many people bought them and they were sold to people all over the area. Fast forward to about 1985. Im in the landscape tree business and we are on alot of properties, I was giving an estimate for a rather large job for one of my clients who had just bought a house and wanted to re landscape. as we were clearing out an area by an old pool I came upon a set of 2 decent yankee stadium box seat chairs. I was excited! I asked my client what she wanted to do with them and she said they are yours if you want them
I couldnt get my men fast enough to load them into the truck. They were decent but a little rough. Well after the excitement wore off they sat in my shop for 20+ years. Problem was they were peeling ,one of the slats was broken and they were just not something you would want to sit in. One day my oldest son asked me about the seats and it got me to thinking about finally fixing them. Biggest problem was that slat,it was curved. I called every one of the seat restorers on line and no one would sell me a curved slat. (I dont think they had one) I finally was able to get a local wood shop to make me some of the slats and the project began!
I called one person who does restore these seats and what he told me was to leave as much of the old paint as possible( The original paint was called sea foam green) and to get the original paint match color. (Yankee stadium blue) A sherwin williams paint #. (Still in use). We took them all apart and cleaned them.I used all the original bolts, was lucky enough that they were still good. Well it turned out to be a great project and I do have some pics. I will put them in to 2 posts as they all dont fit. The seats came out great and I have asked many who have sat in them to tell me which is the replaced slat and not one has got it right. I guess in my case I would restore them and if I had to do it again I would probably do it again!