clearly unfinished is the way to go .
the upside of these lights is you could use them to fix the shut off valve under your sink and … use them to fix the shut off valve under your sink.
I’m with you, that uncoated/ss or gunmetal whatever is the best option for this light. I’ve got the original black ano light and it does not take 18350. I wouldn’t expect this to either. 16340 works fine through.
For me it depends on the coating. If it's clear lacquer then forget about it, I'll take the uncoated. I'm a patina fan more than anything so safest bet is uncoated.
I saw on another forum where Marshall at GoingGear said they were PVD coated. I don’t know exactly how that works, but some googling around informed me that normally PVD coating copper requires that it be chrome plated first, then PVD coated using a copper colored dye. That’s kind of cheating, if you ask me, so I wouldn’t be very I interested in that either.
Good thing I’m a big fan of raw copper, patina and all.
I just got a Ti S1 today, they say the cell is an CR123 or RCR123, is that the same thing as a 16340? Quite small, for sure. Very neat little light, the Ti version has what appears to be a gold PVD bezel, looks very nice, even the packaging is pretty elitist.