cadyshac,I am a nafa man for 16 years and before that a Hudson bay shipper. I handle,size,and pregrade over 100,000 raccoon a year for nafa and I can tell you I love wire stretched roccoon. I know Greg does his demos and promotes wood stretching boards(and Greg is a very good friend of mine)but I equate a lot of the demos to bit of "show biz". I will add that nobody does it better! Wires pretty much eliminate the cheat factor on pointed noses. Clothes pins are acceptible as long as the animal was skinned properly. The stretcher is flexible so it is tempting to "skinny" up the coon but this is so easily detected that it goes without saying. I have stated this before on this website and will state again: If you are shipping fur to one of the auction companies or selling to a major player(such as Groenwald) don't try to get creative. Take what you have and you will always get a break on the grade and size. If you want to fluff up tails or bunch up the fur around the base as sometimes shown at demos or in literature,that is fine but you will NOT be downgraded if you don't. A good clean job and proper stretch will reward you with professional fur dealers and graders. Terry