Be careful what you wish for, part 2

Don't you hate sayings that end in prepositions? Is that only me? OK, onward.

Card blogs are full of wish lists. We call them "want lists," but they're really wish lists, and if the old saying is accurate, we really should be careful, whether we're wishing or wanting.

As an example, I present to you the Nebulous 9, which is propped up on the sidebar. That is kind of the ultimate wish list for me and it's quite effective. Perhaps, too effective sometimes. And thus begins the cautionary tale:

Not too long ago, I realized that while I had owned the 1972 Topps Maury Wills In Action card for years, it was tucked safely into my Dodgers binder and there was an empty spot in my '72 Topps binder.

So up on the Nebulous 9 it went.

It sat there for maybe a month or two and then I received an email from Mark of the blog My Best Friend Collects Chipper Jones. He said he had a few cards off my want list and he made special mention of the Maury Wills In Action card. "Cool," I thought. "I can finally cross that card off my list."

I should have placed the Wills card on the Nebulous 9 in capital letters to indicate that it was en route, but October is insanely busy what with every sport going on at once, work implementing its umpteenth new operating system, deer hitting cars, dogs getting sick, you know the drill. Besides, the card had been on the list for months without a sniff, so no problem, right?

You know where this is going.

Not long after Mark's email, I received a PWE unannounced from Mark Hoyle. He had a handful of cards for me. Here they are:

A lot of 2015 cards there, I know Mark doesn't do many modern cards, so this is very nice of him.

Oh, and there was one other card:

The 1972 Maury Wills In Action card.

Heh.

Mark beat Mark to Maury. Kind of funny.

Oh, well, no harm done. I wouldn't mind an extra of this card. It will remind me of how generous collectors are.

I didn't think much of it and still looked forward to the original Mark's package.

Meanwhile, Keith -- who's commenting handle on here is "eggrocket" -- dropped me an email mentioning nice things about my blog and added that he had found something and thought of me. He would drop it in the mail.

How nice, I thought, and turned my attention to whatever Adult Form I had to fill out now.

The envelope arrived a few days ago, and out dropped a complimentary note, a top-loader and a card that was inside said top-loader.

Heh. Again.

Well, this is a rather nice specimen of the Wills card. But it's clear I'm all good on the Maury Wills In Action card now. "Sorry, Chipper Jones Mark," I thought. "I think I'll get to erasing that Wills card off the Nebulous 9 list. I'll do that tomorrow. Got to go into work early for another round of training (makes gagging noise)."

Well, the next day -- the very next day -- Chipper Jones Mark's envelope shows up in the mail.

And there's Maury Wills In Action again. And Duffy Dyer catching. Don't forget about Duffy Dyer.

Thanks, Mark, for Wills card No. 3.

Feast or famine, right?

But Mark sent a bunch of Line Drive cards that pretty much has knocked out my Dodger needs from one of my favorite minor league sets (I must do a post on that someday).

The Double A San Antonios.

And the Triple A Albuquerques.

Just how I remember them.

Very nice.

But that's not the end of the story.

Chipper Mark's envelope was accompanied in the mailbox by another card envelope.

This one was from Dave, who is from Texas and has sent me cards before. He wanted to drop me a line and mention that he enjoyed the All-Time Topps countdown and say that he agreed with the choices. He also supplied a bar graph chart of my countdown.

Great minds do think alike, Dave. Thanks for the visual.

Dave also included a smattering of cards.

Some '90s style parallels and a parallel from this year.

And there was one base card in the envelope, too.

Anybody need a '72 Maury Wills In Action card?

I've got to trademark this Nebulous 9.