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They are probably Goncalo Alves, with the football cut.

The wood looks like Osage Orange. It is native to N/E Oklahoma and was used for wind brakes along fields in the mid-west in the late 1800's. It is hard and beautiful when finished. I have no knowledge of what woods S&W may have used over the years.

Those are the original style grips. They had the odd cutout on the right to clear the logo. Agree they are probably Golcono Alves, as that's what S&W used for most grips of the time period. The only option I remember is rosewood, aand those definately are not rosewood.

According to the Standard Catalog of S&W, the grips were made of Goncalo Alves with nickel plates medallions.

Osage Orange is from Oklahoma? There is a small grove of it on my deer lease here in SW Georgia.I wonder how it wound up here?I think those grips are GA's,I have some close to that color in my grip collection.

Dick Burg has stated in the past that, during the 70s and 80s, wood from old orange crates was used for stocks. He might be right.
Ed

I think it is straight grained Walnut, like S&W used before Goncalo Alves. (SP may be wrong!) They used an brownish colored varnish of the grips in the old days. Their are many of these floating around.

S &W changed to Goncalo Alves because it is a much harder wood, that didn't get banged up so much, as the Walnut. LEO's used to bang them up pretty good on car doors, furniture, and other places while doin' Police things. Varnish on soft wood gets marked up . Bob

I have seen a number of 25-3's with fairly plain grips looking just like those in the photo. When they were sold in 1977, my local retailer got 2 of them and I bought both. One had plain grips like that and the other had more figure typical for Goncala Alves. The grips determined which one I kept and which one I shot and resold.

goncalo alves

I have a Choctaw friend from Oklahoma. When he moved to South Dakota, he asked a Sioux gentleman "What kind of wood did the Sioux make bows from?". The gentleman replied, and amongst the list of woods mentioned was "Osage Orange". Two years later, my friend discovered that he spent a lot of time trying to find out what kind of wood is "Osage Orange", just to find out that it was the same kind of wood the Choctaw used in Oklahoma: bodark. Man, was he mad.

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otis

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I shot it with both W-W and R-P ammo, the traditional 255 and 250 grain conical loads and it shot pretty well, as good as I could hold them. I only took it to the range once, but it seemed to shoot as well as any other S&W centerfire revolver I had then.

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The stocks on the 125th Anniversary Commerative were Goncalo Alves with nickel plated medallions as has been stated. That gun with box, coin and Roy Jinks book can go close to $1,000. I would think that the gun by itself is worth what you paid.

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James Redfield
LM #497

I don't know squat about the football grips, but it kills me that a piece of work like that only went for $556 and change. Are we in a recession, or what?

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G. alves ! The wood patterns are highly variable in color and brown streaks. Here is a close-up of part of an 8 foot 8/4 board from the shop that shows the variation.

Jerry

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.38/44 Outdoorsman Accumulator