Finishing Finest 2004

A couple weeks ago, while writing up the post about the Finest 2004 Cubs set, I realized that I hadn't finished the set.  I was using the checklist from Teamsets4U which listed 100 base cards.  However, there are actually 122 cards in the set. The extras are divided into two subsets, one with relics of current players (#101-110) and the rest are autographed cards of prospects (#111-122).

There were two Cubs among the ten relics and that meant my team set was incomplete.

Was incomplete, because here are the missing relic cards..

 

...of Sammy Sosa and Mark Prior.  I paid $5 delivered for each of the cards.  In 2004 I don't think you could have touched either for five bucks.

The Prior card had an interest journey on its way to the WW World Headquarters.  It seems that every now and then the post office likes to mess with me, just for fun.

The card got to the post office in Tampa on October 13 and the tracking information said I'd have the card by Friday, October 17.  That sounded great.

The card left Tampa on the 14 and then disappeared.  The tracking showed nothing new, even though it still said it would be delivered on the 17th.  It's pretty annoying to see a delivery date listed and that date has come and gone.

Finally on the 19th the shipping was updated, but it still concerned me.  The card was in Allen Park, Michigan.  That's a Detroit area sorting station.  The card should have gone to Grand Rapids.

It sat in Allen Park for two days and then went to the post office in Ann Arbor.  Now things were messed up.  Even worse, tracking later showed the card was out for delivery.  Ann Arbor is 2½ hours from me.  I'm pretty sure that no carrier in Ann Arbor has a route that extends to Sturgis.

Later in the day tracking showed that the card was undeliverable as addressed.  No kidding!

From Ann Arbor the card went back to Allen Park.  My fear was that the card was heading back to the seller in Tampa.  But on the 23rd, it showed up in Grand Rapids and the next day it was in my hand.  It was a week later than advertised, but I finally go it.

And the address on the envelope?  Was it messed up, causing the mis-shipping and delay.

Nope.

It was perfect.

The post office was not.