I've always been surprised that Colt's New Frontier, which is supposed to be their premium SA revolver, often has such plain and dull finished wood grips. A few examples from GB auctions..



Here's a 1971 NIB .45 with the grips you speak of. They are rather bland grips alright. Especially for a gun that cost $225(!!) back then. Every pasta blaster Italian gun I've ever owned have excellent looking and feeling grips in comparison, though they tend to have that "Uberti red" color that just screams out "I'm not a real Colt!".Some of the worst Colt factory grips I have ever seen were on Nickeled 2nd gen SAA's in Stagecoach boxes. They were made of the most utilitarian (to borrow chaosrob's great description) walnut I have ever seen.