I recently picked up a 1983 Fuji Royale II. It's stock and in pretty good condition, including the gold rims. A scan from the catalog is available here if anyone's interested.

My question regards those rims. The bike has clearly seen very little road time, yet I can already see a bit of shiny, non-gold aluminum coming through, mostly on the braking surface. They're a little tacky so close to the chromed fork, though I often embrace the tacky. I'm considering reconfiguring this as a 3-speed and relacing the rims, and I wonder 2 things:

(a) Is it a particularly good/bad idea to eliminate the gold and take these down to the bare aluminum?
(b) If I do remove the gold coating, how would I go about doing so and protecting the aluminum afterwards? I'm guessing this is anodization, but maybe the fact that it's wearing off after so little use suggests I may be wrong?

I'm really on the fence here. Feel free to harangue me for failing to preserve the original character of the bike. Or to tell me the rims are crap and I'd be better off going with brand new rims instead of investing any effort in stripping these.

Thanks much.