Regarding patina, I was talking about it to a friend today, who has a very original (and valuable) round case 750 Ducati.
He’d bought, at some expense the missing original stickers, including Marzocchi ones for the forks.
Basically they looked far too new and stuck out like a sore thumb. He ended up ‘wearing’ them with wire wool, until they looked like they’d been there for years.