I recently purchased an antique solingen (sheffield silver steel) with an imitation tortoise handle.

the blade edge is perfect (not sharp, but no nicks at all)

unfortunately, there is a lot of rust damage. I removed all the red rust with 0000 steel wool and tried to polish out the black stains with MAAS.

It looks a lot better now (but still not "clean" looking).

I don't know how to make it look any better, but a friend suggested i get it gold plated before i ship it off to classicshaving to have professionally honed.

anybody have any experience with this? if the general consensus is that plating is OK, what metal would be best? gold? rhodium? nickel/teflon? palladium?

any input would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

fliz