Wish I had been able to pick up more of these beauties from last summer's REA - I went strong on the Junior Gilliam, too, but needed to wimp out. Anyway, I am very happy to have ol' Vinegar Bend Mizell in my collection - it is dazzling in hand.
It's difficult to get a good angle on the proof's material or its thickness through the slab. It looks to be approximately the same thickness as the Topps baseball card. It doesn't have any of the "feathery" cut of the cardboard of the waxpack card; it is a far cleaner cut. It suggests to me that artist's paper of some thickness was used rather than it being cardboard. It doesn't look like any kind of hardboard like Masonite to me. It has a certain rigidity to it that I think would rule out it being canvas. Is it bendable? Probably a little bit. As mentioned there is glue on the back. Many of the proofs offered by REA had glue remnants on the front as well. How the proof was used in the mechanical process of producing the BB cards, where the glue came in etc, I have not a clue. Some Board guys have printshop experience and could address that aspect.
