Well, I appreciate all the answers. Let me reiterate, the taxidermist I worked with was pretty up front with me. I think he suggested the package would cost $140, and I personally don't think $175 is far off that mark. While the mount isn't perfect, I didn't pay for perfection. After all . . . it is just the head of a dead animal, not the Mona Lisa. Someone has suggested I was charged $10 for a $5 game tag because the taxidermist had to spend time filling in the paperwork, and I'm willing to buy that argument. Additionally, he may have had to make a special trip to purchase the $5 game tag. I haven't dealt with other taxidermists and can't speak about them, but I wouldn't characterize the guy who did my son's antelope head as dishonest in any sense.

Of all the costs involved in the mount, however, I feel that the cost of the packaging is an area where it ought to be possible to be more efficient, and my making informed choices down the road can probably lead to some costs savings in this area. Some have suggested caping the head, keeping it cold or frozen, and bringing it back to a local taxidermist is a way to cut out the shipping cost and the crate cost. To me it seems I could also build the crate myself, for much less money and not too much time, and carry this crate with me on my next pronghorn hunt. I have a suburban which has sufficient room for such a crate and I can pack things inside of the crate so that the space is not just wasted empty space on the drive up to Wyoming. Since I have a model before me to work with, the crate the pronghorn head arrived in, I don't see why this isn't a viable option.

Another viable option, again I think someone else mentioned it, is to leave the head in Wyoming and just plan to go pick it up the next season. I thought about this quite a bit this time around, but my wife nixed the idea. My thinking was that the cost of box and shipping -- about $225 in my case -- was enough to pay for my gasoline to and from Gillette (1180 mile trip from my house, one way). I might have just gotten myself a cheap doe/fawn permit, drive up, bag a doe or two (I understand that they are readily available over the counter and you can just drive into town and purchase additional tags BEFORE your hunt as you need them), pick up my pronghorn head, and drive back home.

Thanks for all the replies.