This morning, I popped by the post office to pick 
up my newest package. I had ordered three cels 
from a Japanese vendor I had never used before. 
One cel was of a character I didn't much like, 
but liked the scene; and the other two were of a 
character higher on my like-scale, but I had 
bought because they were from earlier episodes 
and are difficult to track down. I had really 
been looking forward to those last two cels, 
mostly because (a) it was filling a gap in my 
collection; and (b) I had bought one as a gift 
and one for myself.

Well, I won't go into my feelings of shock when I 
saw the cels had been shipped in a plain ol' 
envelope-bag, with nothing to stiffen it or 
protect the cels. ;oP But when I got back and 
opened the package... I was very disappointed.

The first cel, of the character I didn't much 
care for, looked fine. But the other two cels 
were suffering from line fading I hadn't known 
about, and wasn't expecting. For this particular 
series, stuck sketches are a bigger problem than 
line fading... Hrm. :o( Fortunately, I wasn't out 
much, but I *would* have easily paid two or three 
times the amount that I did to get these 
particular cels, if that had been the asking 
price. And if *that* had been the case, I would 
be very upset. Fortunately, though, the line 
fading on the gift cel is much less than the line 
fading on the cel I was going to keep.

I guess two correction layers are on tonight's 
program. :o)

-Cres