Crown and Sword Scales Smells weird

[vulcano]

Hello all...

I has been working on this C&S, first I put it water with a liquid that I use to disinfect then, dry it with a towel, and use MASS on the blade to clean it a little bit, I do always the same with blades that I get from ebay, to see the real state of my buy....

I found a couple of things that are out the normal, at least to my knowledge...

1) The color of the scales are brown (my other C&S are black, and I can remember any other color than black on the original scales)

2) while cleaning the blade I use also MASS trying to clean the scales, I noticed to things. The scales were a little bit sticky, and smells weird when I try to clean them with the dremel (cotton and masss)

That was two days ago, I got the pictures today, the scales are not sticky today, but still has the brown color, and a little bit of that smell (without any mass or dremel around...hehehe)

Should I be worried about it? AaronX mentioned last night the possibility of rot (without seeing the pics that doesn't exist until this morning..hehehe)

And input will be welcome....