Big difference between a rust browning procees or rust brown chem finish which it might actually be and the hardened smoothed over handled aged rust called patina that some hold in such high"regard" as a selling point.
To each their own......
Patina is a result of compounded neglect over time that has gained mythical value by fools long ago to be used as a selling point for top dollar value.
I dont buy into it.
I also dont buy into the removing patina and restoring a finish destroys condition value.
Metal or wood.
Laughable to hear wood described as having patina
Patina on wood is fughing grime.....
This schit was something made up by sellers long ago to get top dollar value and has mutated into an accepted standard and condition term to get top dollar out of poor condition firearms.
The antique bussiness is also full of old fogey bullschitt standards established decades ago also for top dollar sales to the gullible.
JMO
And I am sticking by it, always have, always will.
It's like with coin collecting, too. An old filthy coin can be worth a lot. Clean it, and suddenly the coin collecting community says it's now worthless as a collector's piece.
I once saw a nice old pistol, heavily rusted but lightly pitted sitting ignored on a table at a busy gun show - no one was interested.
So I bought it, and after about 2 hours of polishing it got a hot bluing on my Coleman stove. It took on an especially nice blue color.
Not long after, I sold it to a dealer for 4x what I paid for it.
As he was paying me, the dealer lamented about "how some dummy had ruined a valuable collectible by refinishing it".
