Hello!
That specific aluminium mill was state owned! 
But more seriously - I heard the American jets were made of duraluminium plated with a thin layer of pure aluminium, that could, and ofte would be polished to high gloss. The German and later Russian aircraft didn’t have that thin aluminium coating, and so even if you polished them, you wouldn’t get a surface this glossy!
Now somebody has to posta a photo of a recent MiG here! Have a nice day
Paweł
Not recent, and not super shiny. But not dull either. NMF with the Soviets went out in the mid 70s…
Here a couple of late modle Mig 21 photos I found at the end of the silver/NMF era.
a very even toned Czech Fishbed. Laquer perhaps?
and some multi toned NMF Soviet late model Fishbeds. Certainly not polished up for show…
Hello Stik!
I meant more like a picture of a model, recently built, to make the thread recent again, but thanks a lot, the pictures you posted are valuable!
Here in Poland they didn’t paint the -21’s until they were retired. Let me post a picture too:
This one is taken in 1997. The white stripe is for the “Eagle Claw” exercise, that was conducted together with various NATO forces.
Have a nice day
Paweł
I know that several Warsaw Pact air forces went to a light gray to replace the NMF on interceptor types. The Polish Air Force did not do that in that era? I have seen photos of a few Polish Mig-21s in light gray.
Hello!
I Poland we had about 600 MiG’s in the mid-nineties, when we started to phase them out. MiG-21’s and older were natural metal at that time. Some -17s and -15s working as ground support aircraft were camouflaged. MiG-23s and -29s were already supplied painted. Some MiG-21s were also grey already in the eighties, but those were very rare. In XXI century the few surviving MiG-21s were painted gray, but there were only few of them in Polish inventory by that time. MiG-21s were withdrawn from the service in Poland on 1st January 2004.
Have a nice day
Paweł
I have history with aluminium, sorry about my earlier comment. Duraluminium is an alloy of aluminium that has a few percent of copper and a few other metals added in. It is very vulnerable to corrosion. Everyones favorite green (and yellow) zinc chromate on interior surfaces of ww2 era models is an aluminium preservative. The pure aluminium clad to the surface is more resistant to corrosion. When polished the pure aluminium will form a thin layer on aluminium oxide that is inhibits corrosion nicely. If the aluiminium gets pitted an water sits in the pits you are in trouble, so keep it polished. Todays aerospace aluminium flavors are more resistant.