Yes, they were parkerized. Part of the process of prepping the metal for parkerizing is to bead blast or sandblast down to bare metal, and that will remove the rust. Then reparkerize using a kit available from several sources. I just got a kit from Midway http://www.midwayusa.com/viewProduct...tNumber=731489

Other sources are PARKERIZING and BENCHTOP PARKERIZING KIT at Brownells