Tom,
Take what I say with a grain of salt, but this is what I would do on that saw.
First thing I would do is grab a rasp and take it to the handle, round off the hard edges and soften it up. I would remove all the finish off of it, and rub BLO on it, and if I wanted more, I would use Shellac. I like the feel of plain BLO on a saw handle though.
That saw looks pretty good, I like that era of Disston saws, providing the handle is softened up.
Make sure you give it a good sharpening, and if you haven't done that before, I would learn how to do that on this saw, it's a perfect saw to learn how to sharpen as they had about 14 or 15 points (not too small), and the quality of the steel is pretty good on those. I typically use 2.5x magnification for that size tooth. I use an
OptiVisor I bought from Woodcraft. If you're on a budget, get a cheapo from
Harbor Freight. You can get files from LN, LV, or Vintage Saws. I would use a 4 xx-slim for that saw.
There's another thread in this forum which I had posted a very similar saw I did just as I described. You can see it at this link, and it shows what the saw looked like before I started (it did have most of the laquer removed from the handle already, but that's not hard to accomplish).
Fettlin' on saws...