I had a guy send me photos of what he thought was a Swedish anvil. He wanted to two swage blocks it trade. I was told it’s was around  250lbs. Clearly he had no clue what it was but I was curious. So when I first saw the photos. It hurt my brain turns out it’s a Hay Budden that was given to the guy he got it from. It was a retirement gift from the shop he had worked at for many years. They thought they would chrome plate it for him.

Interesting look. I wouldn't imagine it hurt the usefulness of it except the chrome might flake off the face with use. Might start a trend of people chrome plating anvils. That would be one way of keeping it from rusting.

Have you ever seen an old chrome bumper? When they rust? The problem is if you have any separation between the iron core and chrome water will basically eat away the iron. I suspect that anvil got serious issues hidden underneath. I would never trust anything plated.  

And I would never forge yellow hot steel on a chromed anvil either...

Also research hydrogen embrittlement

Gents, this is a ‘cold’ electrolytic process – a nice/cool gesture of his buddy’s and take no harm to the body of the anvil. The ‘little’ guy go’s trough a de-rusting acid bath and hanged up in a electrolytic bath to ‘inhale’ a portion of chrome. And yes, if you beat on the face and horn, he will lose his ‘bling-bling’ coat but without any loss any of his performance or usability.

So you are saying that no noxious gas will be released on burning away this chrome plating if it gets forged on?  Seems unlikely to me.

Well the melting point of chrome is quite high; I'd be more worried about an undercoat of copper.

However you can have the chrome stripped at a plating place too.