Is the VM an autograph or copy?

[nickpelling]

Hides were washed, soaked, pounded, scraped, beaten, whitened, and generally abused, before being tightly stretched out in a frame until all vestiges of three-dimensionality had been beaten out of them.

Any flaws or imperfections were brought out by this tension: tick bites or puncture wounds (howsoever small) could pop out into holes, while cuts could be magnified into tears or rips.