My son prefers the wooden shield background for the mount. The extra cost was approximately $60 for a walnut sheild for a pronghorn head. We are also having a brass memorial plate put on the mount, cost presumably extra. This is as my son wants it. I'm not sure what my preference would have been if I was making the decisions on my own mount, but confess leaning to the wooden shield background. Maybe this is just because I have seen so many old-time deer heads mounted this way. Certainly a lot of heads these days are not mounted on wooden backgrounds such as this. I suppose some people think adding an extra 15% to the cost of the mount is not worth it.