I recently picked up a couple of old eBay cheapies to practice honing on. One was an old Loeffler & Sykes Crescent with scales that pretty much fell apart as soon as I opened the blade. I 've sanded off all the rust and dark patches, but there are still stains, if you will, on the blade itself. They look like water marks of the sort you might find on your car windows after a heavy rain, should you be parked near a construction zone. It's not dirt and it's not discolouration; just a random spattering of swirls and pocks.

I would imagine the ideal is to start at a low enough grit to get all this off so one would eventually have a perfectly smooth blade, but is the goal of getting them off more than one of aesthetics? Also, while I'm here, anyone familiar enough with Loefflers to say whether or not having it rescaled is worth the cost or effort?