five years no call

on february 1, 2020, i entered a panini redemption code for a 2019 immaculate collection ted simmons autograph. simmons had just recently been voted into the hall of fame, and i wanted to add him to my hall of famer collection. unfortunately, the redemption was not fulfilled in a timely fashion, and i went a different route for simmons.

i later found out from a panini rep that simmons had not yet returned the immaculate collection cards to panini, and i eventually requested a replacement. i followed up every once in a while with emails and received some encouraging responses, but nothing ever happened. then last month, about five years after i had entered the code, i logged into my panini account and gave them a call. i was connected to a rep almost immediately, and within about thirty seconds i was assured that the ticket would be taken care of and that i could hopefully expect a package within a couple of weeks. a couple of hours later, i received an email saying that a replacement was being mailed out.

that was february 12. on february 17, i received a package. it contained this card (that i photographed poorly):

that's a card from the same set - 2019 panini immaculate collection - featuring 2019 national league mvp cody bellinger. officially, it's a dual materials autograph card, numbered 48/49. here's the back:

i would have been pretty stoked to get this card in 2019 or even 2020. today, it's still pretty great that panini aligned the replacement with my team of choice (unlike what happened when fleer went bankrupt and my unfulfilled redemptions were replaced with a bunch of random cards). i can't complain about anything, really.