Blaz, you visit this thread after ten years with new evidence? How cool is that? :D

By the way, I have got my mirror polished sallet years ago. And the experiment, how long it takes to rust, stashed away in a willow basket, reaches it's 6th year... Well, I think I will have to take a look... next year.

Hey, the thread has 42.000 views, and I still point the people to it when debate comes to "was medieval armour ever polished?". I have since seen a lot (mostly) late 15th century paintings that depict armour with clearly shown reflections on it, but it's more of the same that's already shown in images above. But text describing polished armour that reflects like a mirror was new to me!

Remember that bronze mirrors were common by the first millennium BCE. So people could give things any level of polish up to mirror, the only question was whether the customer was willing to pay for that.

The Traditional Armour Finishing Processes thread has some photos of 15th century armour which was being disassembled for conservation, revealing steel which had been protected under other steel. Check out page 2 and page 5.