I have Monty kennedy's book on stockmakingand checkering from the early 50s. I can tell you, from his book, he was very selective, as were his contemporaries, about The stocks they chose. Bear in mind though, that these are not off the shelf stocks, but ones made to order. The prized wood it seems above all else was curly maple, the stockmakers trudging around the hills of California looking for trees that would contain exactly what they wanted and trying to harvest them in secret before anyone else got to them first!!!
Monty also details how he tiger striped quite plain wood using a blowlamp and a metal stencil. The stocknin question was quite remarkable.