Jigged Bone History?

[Ol' Drover]

Jigged bone grips seem to have been very popular with law enforcement officers during the first half of the 20th century, at least in the SW. I guess that is because they are good looking, offer a secure grip and aren't likely to break if you have to whack somebody in the head with your gun.

I enjoy the ones I have acquired but they all seem to be somewhat of a mystery. After considerable research, I have not yet been able to find a single person or factory that can be documented as having made them. Also, I have found nothing establishing exactly how they were grooved or what species the bone came from.

My own theory, with no evidence to back it up, is that dozens or hundreds of different men with talent and time on their hands, made use of the hundreds of tons of thick, heavy and weathered bone scattered across the prairie after the wholesale slaughter of the buffalo, to make something beautiful and valuable.

I would be glad to entertain other theories but what I'm really looking for is a catalog listing, newspaper ad or any book or article that might answer those questions. Lacking that, I'm more than happy to look at pictures of your jigged bone grips!

 

[Wyatt Burp]

They seem to appear in the 20s in both western films and also law enforcement for guns like yours. A few people or companies were doing them because some are real crappy with unnatural looking jagged “‘grooves” cut. Not flowing like the great ones you have. I hope someone has the answers for you. In two famous pictures of Bonnie & Clyde goofing off with their stolen guns features a Triple Lock with jigged bone grips taken from a lawman they kidnapped.

 

[DGNY]

I don’t happen to own any, as I never have run into them for sale. You have three excellent looking sets with great patina in your picture. I look forward to seeing some more examples by those who can show them off.

Today, I should think that beef (shin?) bone would be readily available, but that the price might actually be higher than shed elk antlers, which could be close to gratis. Yet, with the ways of the world today, elk antlers may bring a high price…

 

[quinn]

Here are a couple of mine, both sets of grips appear to have been on the respective guns for a long period of time. First is a 5" Triple Lock wearing jigged bones set with what appears to be Rhinestones. The TL was shipped to Memphis in July, 1914. The second example is a 4" 3rd model 44 shipped in April, 1930, to Wolf & Klar of Ft. Worth. About the only observation that I can offer is that there is a consistency to the several sets on W&K gun/grip combos that I own or have observed. This leads me to expect that W&K might have had these mass produced in Mexico along with their holsters.

 

[Ol' Drover]

You are probably right about many of them being made in Mexico, especially the Wolf & Klars. I don't have the letter yet but the 4" 3rd model in my original post belonged to a Fort Worth officer and probably shipped to W&K in 1937. Definite resemblance to yours.

 

[Oyeboteb]

Jigged Bone as such, came from the Jaw Bone of Cattle.

Some of the examples we may call Jigged Bone may actually be Stag or Elk Antler, as it used to be, vis a vie the style which Stag has now.

Examples like we are posting which date from back-when, were also popular in Germany in the 1920s, 1930s and maybe on for a while from there.

Here's one of my favorite older S&Ws, an early 2nd Model H.E. in .44 Special, which had these on it when I got it -


Hosted on Fotki

 

[Hondo44]

Both jigged bone folding knife and fixed blade 'scales' (handle slabs), and handgun grips were usually made from cow shin bones. Still used to this day on knives and produced by the knife manufacturers. I guarantee they're not buffalo bones picked up from the plains; they became unusable rapidly drying out and cracking, plus also chewed up by rodents for their cakcium and mineral contents. Besides the bones were scoured from the plains during and after the slaughter, shipped east by train, and made into animal feed and fertilizer by manufacturers.

I suspect the shin bones, etc., were probably free or very cheap from the slaughter houses of the early 20th century. I agree with you that likely every Tom, Dick and Jose produced jigged bone back in the day and likely in the southwest. There may have been some large scale production but I know of no companies identifiable today and may have been imported by foreign makers as well. Although some USA grip makers of other materials may have offered them in their grip product lines. By the 40's and 50's imported genuine stag was so cheap and superior it put jigged bone out of business. I bought premium stag grips in the mid 1960's that now sell for $3-400 and of lesser quality because of India's shed harvesting restrictions to protect their threatened tiger population.

Frankly compared to the genuine articles; India Sambar Stag, European Red Deer Stag and German Stag, jigged bone never interested me enough to wonder where it came from or who made it.

Good luck with your research.

 

[krsmith58]

Jigged bone history ????

Ol' Drover, i would like to know more history on jigged bone and mother of pearl. not a lot of info on either kind readily available.

i really like grips made of different materials. i have purchased 2 revolvers on one of the big auction sites just for the grips. the M&P 1905 38 special 3rd change with jigged bone. the second was a model 10-5 with ivory grips.


i subscribed to your thread so i might learn a little about the history of said grips. thanks for posting. krs/kenny

 

[LEO918]

In all my days I've had only three pair of Jigged Bone Grips. Here is the one pair I have left on a Pre War Heavy Duty.

 

[paplinker]

I have a set that gets rotated on a couple guns of mine.

I will check my King catalogs to see if I can find reference of them for sale.

I do think they all look very much alike in the pattern,leaving me to believe likely all were made from the same company.

 

[Modified]

I love jigged bone. But there are certainly different grades of it. Some of it is gorgeous and artful, some of it is little better then trash.

It's not super common, and I've found it's only really worth buying sets that I really like the look of, but what I do have I really enjoy.

 

[Modified]

Amusingly, I have also come up with a single set of jigged ivory, which may be of some interest here too:

 

[Walter Rego]

I have a couple of reproduction Stoeger's catalogs. One from 1932 and the other from 1940. They are a great reference for all kinds of gun related things. I have attached a scan of a page of their grips offerings from 1932. Sorry but the catalog page reproduction is a bit murky but I cleaned up the image the best that I could.

Anyway, they offered grips made of a material called "Arthorn" that sure looks like jigged bone. Their 1940 catalog goes on to describe Arthorn as "made of composition similar to ivory, but may also be had in imitation tortise or in colors. Unless otherwise requested, we supply the imitation ivory when Arthorn is ordered".

So that makes it sound like Arthorn is a synthetic, molded material. But on another page, Stoeger offers Tenite grips, described as "a new and tough plastic" and some have a jigged bone pattern to them. Many of us have encountered these Tenite grips and it is easy to tell they are plastic.

For a price comparison, a set of Tenite grips for a Colt SAA are $2.20. A set of Arthorn though are $5.00, genuine Stag are $8.00 and genuine Ivory $9.00 with steerhead carving added for an extra $5.00.

So Arthorn was more than twice the price of Tenite which seems to indicate that it wasn't another molded plastic or synthetic product right ? Maybe it was jigged bone ?

 

[delta-419]

East Texas Grips

I have several pair of jigged bone grips, these came out of East Texas and grace a .44 Triple Lock. I'll see if I can find my photos of the other guns to post.

 

[ddixie884]

These are very interesting to me, but I have nothing to ad to this thread except, THANX for sharing........

 

[RCL-09]

This thread got me to thinking and googling since I never had thought of what jigged bone was. This helped me a lot:

Case XX Jigging Types

 

[4speed]

this is a very interesting thread, as I have a pair of jigged bone grips, and for years I had no idea what they were exactly,
I would post a pic, but that are on a pistol whose name is a four letter word

 

[bigmtnman]

Having been able to work with some nice big sambar antlers in the past, I had this thought about "jigged bone". After cutting the slabs from a very big dense antler, what was left underneath was also dense and thick enough for another pair of slabs for grips. Of course it would have no bark and just be smooth. When I made a pair from that "second cut" it looked just like the "jigged bone" material I had seen over the years. I think at least some "jigged bone" is the second cut from big dense sambar antlers. It would certainly be more bang for your antler buck ($)

 

[Modified]

I have a couple of reproduction Stoeger's catalogs. One from 1932 and the other from 1940. They are a great reference for all kinds of gun related things. I have attached a scan of a page of their grips offerings from 1932. Sorry but the catalog page reproduction is a bit murky but I cleaned up the image the best that I could.

Anyway, they offered grips made of a material called "Arthorn" that sure looks like jigged bone. Their 1940 catalog goes on to describe Arthorn as "made of composition similar to ivory, but may also be had in imitation tortise or in colors. Unless otherwise requested, we supply the imitation ivory when Arthorn is ordered".

So that makes it sound like Arthorn is a synthetic, molded material. But on another page, Stoeger offers Tenite grips, described as "a new and tough plastic" and some have a jigged bone pattern to them. Many of us have encountered these Tenite grips and it is easy to tell they are plastic.

For a price comparison, a set of Tenite grips for a Colt SAA are $2.20. A set of Arthorn though are $5.00, genuine Stag are $8.00 and genuine Ivory $9.00 with steerhead carving added for an extra $5.00.

So Arthorn was more than twice the price of Tenite which seems to indicate that it wasn't another molded plastic or synthetic product right ? Maybe it was jigged bone ?

I don't think so, I think it is an actual synthetic material.

If you note in this old Kearsarge pamphlet he mentions Moon Synthetics.

That didn't make a lot of sense until I was pointed at something from American Rifleman regarding this material. I've cobbled together the snippit and attached it.

I think that the reason the cost is higher is because the stuff isn't molded, but instead a block of hard plastic that is then carved. So you could maybe call it jigged plastic. I've seen a couple sets like this around, usually in old grip boxes. Pretty sure they are what Stoeger listed there, or something close.

 

[bigmtnman]

How about some less common plastic "jigged bone" target grips..... You can tell from the style "footballs" they are from the 50's-60's.