Can you post a picture? Generally speaking,most lock collectors will clean the padlock with a good penetrant (PB Blaster,WD40 etc).Most of the time if you take a wire wheel to one it will take off any of the origional patena. I have used a brass hand brush,it’s not so agressive to cleanup a lock. As to repainting,that’s your call. It will lower the resale value to another collector,but if it makes the lock more pleasing to you for your own personalviewing, go for it (paint can always be removed later).I have used electrolisis to clean padlocks in the past, but they were rusted beyond any real value anyway. The rarer the padlock the less you should do to it (besides general cleaning)🙁hi):
