Color is much 'richer', good mahogany color with no wash out. I have no answer for you about the step plate. I did however look at a site with numerous pictures of Chris Craft Mahogany boats and the majority of them had 'flat black' step plates. One of them, the 1953 Chris Craft Runabout had 'white' step plates. If you would like to go and look, here is the link, hopefull it will be live.

Bob

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=...ed=0CBoQ9QEwAg