I received this mantle and stained and poly coated it. You can tell the "distressing" was machine done, its pretty regularly spaced and uniform. The staining and sealing really helped to make it look better.
I had to be careful with the stain as it did not take uniformly. I wound up doing two coats to the whole thing and spot staining a third coat. I used a semi-gloss polyurethane, three coats with 220 grit sanding between coats.
Overall I am very pleased with the way it turned out. 
I took one star off because there is some type of white non-porous plug embedded on one side of the mantle that did not take any stain. It is not terribly noticeable, but I know it is there.