It has arrived!

 

I'm sure I'm not the only one waiting on overdue packages right now.

We've all heard the post office tales and I'm not immune. One of my Christmas gift purchases that I bought in mid-October has been sitting in a warehouse at the Los Angeles International Airport for nearly two months.

A few packages have arrived, but not quickly and there are a couple of others that are still out there. And some card orders have been slow to arrive as well. Remember when that notification that said, "your package has shipped!" would get your blood pumping? Now it's almost the modern equivalent of "your check is in the mail."

I'd be a bit more relaxed if I didn't see the constant arrival of packages addressed to my wife. I suppose I should be pleased as possibly some of those packages are for moi. But, man, what does the post office have against me?? I've been keeping them in business all year round!

So I was even more excited than usual today when amid yet another package addressed to my wife, I spotted my envelope from Sportlots! Go me! I AM somebody!

I ordered shipment on this about a week ago so it arrived without delay. But I had been waiting a long time since I first ordered my cards because I went with the box shipment just to see if it could be assembled faster than my first couple of orders with the box shipment. Nope.

Now I know this isn't the right time to test someone's delivery skills, but I might be done with the box shipment process. We'll see. Like I've said before, 4-6 weeks was agony when I was ordering off the side of a cereal box in the '70s as a kid and my patience isn't any better.

But enough of that. The cards are here. I can touch them. I can file them and organize them and admire all of their quirks and let them cast their spell. Let's see what was a pretty modest order:

 

I have moments where cheap, colorful parallels of my favorite team are what I want more than anything else and I must have them. These are the wonderful emeralds from 2013 Topps, and either nobody cares about these players anymore or they never did. Cheapies for me!

Who remembers Topps Unique from 2009? Heck, that's 12 years ago. Unique is counting on you forgetting about it and that it had parallels, too. I have not forgotten. Those red parallels were a pain to get back then, but now not so much. I love getting another Jim Thome Dodger card.

 

Probably the least-interesting cards to me in the whole package. But definite needs -- that 2017 Chrome Kershaw completes the team set and has been elusive for too long.

I focused on these 35th anniversary thingies because I like the 1986 Topps design and feel like I shunned it back in '86 as it's the first card set that I actively ignored since the start of my collecting in 1975. Shame on me.

 

******Rant alert********

I also want to grab what I can because I will NOT be looking for any of the 35th anniversary insert cards in 2022 Topps. I can't believe Topps has the nerve to trot out the 1987 design for infinity. They just did the '87 insert design in 2017 for the 30th anniversary and then panicked in 2018 when the 1988 design came next and magically made it a 35th anniversary celebration instead and now here we are with 1987 like, hey, we didn't just do this. Nope, not gonna do it, maybe I'll get rid of all my '87 design tributes instead as some sort of cosmic countermeasure.

 

 Here are some of the colored parallels that sucker me in because seeing them on a set like this is wild. I thought the Muncy was black-bordered, too, like the Kershaw, but it's blue or maybe purple. The Kershaw is numbered and that makes me happy.

 

One of the main missions of this order was to be done with the 2001 Upper Deck Decade '70s set forever. For me, that means finishing off all the insert sets (I'm not bothering with relics and autographs, I think you know me by now). I almost did it, finishing one card short.

I wrapped up the Decade Dynasties cards.

And I finished the Super Powers cards. I didn't have a single one of these until purchasing all six. Were these a tougher pull than the other inserts?

I gathered all but one of the Arms Race inserts, too (wow, this thing is riddled with recent departures). The one I missed is the only insert card I need -- Nolan Ryan, of course. I'm not sure if I just missed that card when going through my Sportlots rounds or if it wasn't available. It's available now and I just dumped one in my cart.

Speaking of Nolan Ryan, the Ryan Super Powers card came with a bunch of friends:

The Sportlots seller was "metsman" and I think he might know me with all of the Dodgers goodness. The gold Niedenfuer is a need, too. Cool!

My order wasn't heavy with vintage, just because this fall money got tighter and vintage is more expensive. It's nice to get these cards even if the Donaldson and Bryant cards are the reason why this set bored me as a kid.

 

But here is the reason I was in such a yank to get this order. This is the second-to-last 1976 Hostess card that I needed and it was one of the first things in my cart way back in October!

After making rapid progress on the '76 Hostess set through the year, I hit a massive wall and the last two cards are taking their sweet-ass time. Stargell (this is a Stargell-themed envelope, I got three of them here) is in somewhat questionable shape, based on the back.

The only Hostess card I have with writing on the back. But, what the heck, it's my only Joey Maricle autograph.

With this card, the only one I need is the Rod Carew, which figures.

For months, the Carew -- one of the SPs -- was available on ebay, several folks were selling it. But I ignored it because it was one of the pricier ones, and figured I'd get to it one day.

Well, about the time I started setting a watch for the card, it disappeared. I've gotten just two notices for the card in two months. One was gone before I even had a chance to look. The other one showed up just today. It's actually part of  a full box and I'm not paying $70 for one card that I need. However, you guys, Christmas is just 12 days away!

I won't even expect it to show up by Christmas if you order it. I hear the post office is having a tough time.