Oil lamp

[M. Demetrius]

Thus one should not be discouraged if they have that kind of semi gloss modern look.

I'm generally of that same mind. When the Romans used them, they were new, not rough. And their knives were not pitted and rust-stained, they were new. Etc. I believe we err when we try to make our gear look "old" or "ancient", as we're portraying a set of people who had things that were mostly neither.

[Doc]

David,

I agree that we need to bring to life what the items would have possibly looked like in their day. Making something look crappy and ruddy is not accurate. However, this does not mean that you take a Gallic helmet and polish the steel to the point that it is a mirror. Polishing to the natural shine of the metal is good enough. I rarely clean my helmet other than a dusting. Once in a while if a little rust forms, I remove it and then oil the helmet but that is as far as it goes. On the other hand if a helmet was silvered, then cleaning it would make it mirror like but I do not think this is the case with pure iron. Of course I do not have a time machine to check what I said but it seems reasonable from what is know of metals when cleaned.