Stainless steel parts.

[alantani]

now this is interesting.  on the flip side, we have all seen rusted examples of these old steel penn gears.  we need steve carson here. 

[VW]

Yep, very interesting.  I guess a metallurgic exam is the only way to know for sure.  Am not going to do anything destructive for testing.  Now that I know stainless gears were available, am going to assume these probably are.