"Trench Art" grips were hand-made in theater, either by bored GIs or by locals eager to sell stuff like that to American servicemen. The most well-known ones are the clear 1911 grips made from scrapped aircraft windshields that GIs often slipped a picture of their girl underneath (aka "Sweetheart" grips). Others include elephant ivory grips carved by local artisans in SE Asia and sold on the street to US soldiers while on leave in the cities. The ones on the revolver in question were hand-made out of some sort of ebony-colored wood and were painted with dragons and the serviceman's name and rank, along with "Korea 1950". That immediately piqued my interest even though the original grips are long gone.