"Personalized" GI handguns and bringbacks

[PrimitiveBeasty]

I happened upon these pictures and thought they were neat. I thought I'd see if anyone had any pictures they'd like to share, or at least had something to say.

Evidently a number of GIs made this kind of photo-backed plexiglass grips from the windows of crashed planes.
I believe the third one with the pinup girl is modern production, but I included it here just because.

81637

81638

81639

[Reloader06]

Interesting. I have never heard of such a thing, but that doesn't mean anything.

[rondog]

They were called sweetheart grips.

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b150/rinselman/guns/holsters%20and%20grips/sweetheartgrips.jpg

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b150/rinselman/guns/holsters%20and%20grips/sweetheartgrips-1-2.jpg

[gmsharps]

That answers a question I have had for a number of years. In the late 70's I was stationed in Germany and worked on a Kaserene that Rommell had used at one time prior to his desert campaign and when the US came in they took over the use of the Kaserne. A friend and I were running some commo cable in one of the buildings one day and in the attic between two pieces of wood my friend found an old GI 45 that had plexiglas grips. No pictures under them but they were to us at the time really ugly grips. I talked to one of the armorors and he gave us a pair of those old reddish brown grips that really didn't look much better that were being used at the time and we shot that 45 for quite some time before he rotated back to the US and he may have brought it back with him I'm not sure. If that old 45 could talk and say where it had been and where the grips came from would be interesting.

gmsharps

[rondog]

That answers a question I have had for a number of years. In the late 70's I was stationed in Germany and worked on a Kaserene that Rommell had used at one time prior to his desert campaign and when the US came in they took over the use of the Kaserne. A friend and I were running some commo cable in one of the buildings one day and in the attic between two pieces of wood my friend found an old GI 45 that had plexiglas grips. No pictures under them but they were to us at the time really ugly grips. I talked to one of the armorors and he gave us a pair of those old reddish brown grips that really didn't look much better that were being used at the time and we shot that 45 for quite some time before he rotated back to the US and he may have brought it back with him I'm not sure. If that old 45 could talk and say where it had been and where the grips came from would be interesting.

gmsharps

I'd bet those grips would be worth a couple bucks to collectors nowadays! Be much better with the provenance behind them, but they were still likely the real deal.

FWIW, I have a set that a local guy sold me, but they're new. A friend of his made a few sets. If my wife was a little nicer maybe I'd put 'em on my 1911A1 with her photos. But I'd rather use photos of my Beagles. I'm sure that wouldn't go over well.