I've had these banisters in my house for ages that had this really poorly done ugle brown/maroon paint. My wife got fed up with them and decided to strip and sand them.
Wonder of wonders, what's under there is some kind of dense hardwood with some great grain to it.
Now I'm trying to decide how to finish it.
My initial plan had been what I always do: basic stain plus a wipe on poly of some sort. Pretty good, pretty easy.
However, this is significantly higher quality wood than the cheap pine I usually work with. It was suggested to me I look into a Tung or Danish oil, and I've now fallen down a deep rabbit hole of wood finishing.
Any preferred finishes that emphasize grain for pretty wood in high traffic areas?
My choice would probably be Osmo PolyX. It's fairly easy to apply, only take 2-3 coats, takes a little while to fully cure--but not as long as pure tung oil--and gives a nice, durable, natural looking finish. It can be freshened up fairly easily if necessary, unlike polyurethane. What I like about it is that it's a fairly matte finish, so you get to see the wood without a high gloss.
If you want a shinier finish, you could try shellac. You'll need to build up a lot of coats, but recoat time is about an hour to an hour and a half, so it's not bad. You do need to sand lightly between each coat, and the final coat can be rubbed with powdered pumice to buff to a high gloss. Shellac can be damaged by standing water--it will bloom--but it's fairly easy to repair. Be warned that if you think you might want to finish with poly at some point, you need to get dewaxed shellac; the natural waxes in shellac will interfere with other coatings.