Why is this spoon unique?

  The following is from the memoir written by Aruthur H. Westing.  He served with How Company, Third Battalion, First Marine Regiment (H-3-1) as its artillery Forward Observer. The brass spoon mentioned below was brought home by him and displayed in his home.  "Marines involved in the day-to-day close combat with our North Korean adversaries were able to make this evident to one and all by sporting a spoon in the pencil slot of the breast pocket of their fatigue jacket, with the shallow-bowl end sticking out. It seemed that every North Korean soldier possessed one of these distinctly shaped and apparently hand-crafted spoons, presumably made from expended brass artillery shell casings. And the usual way for a Marine to obtain that inanimate equivalent of a scalp was to liberate it from a North Korean he had either killed or captured. These spoons were the envy of our actually rather few rear-echelon troops, who would sometimes attempt to buy one, almost always unsuccessfully." 

The description at the Marine Corps Museum is more tame, stating that these spoons addressed the issue of C-ration spoons being too short to effectively reach into the cans.

Both interpretations are valid. The description from the Marine Corps Museum might simply be a more concise version that doesn't detail how the spoons were acquired. This concise explanation provides essential information while leaving room for deeper individual narratives like the "Ida Wah" spoon story, which add rich layers of personal history and significance to the items.  

Images of the spoon and description board were taken by myself at the USMC museum Quantico, VA.