[stevehertz]

I once acquired a Bush TV22 that had been painted white to er, modernise it I guess. The paint simply flaked off with little more than a finger nail. Now, I'm not saying that every overpainted bakelite item will give up its paint so easily by this method but I'm pretty sure that in general paint doesn't get too much of a hold on bakelite. Various methods will remove it as described above.