Tales of Mail Horror: Listia Edition

I've spent quite a bit of time over the last month or two talking about some fun Listia pickups.  Unfortunately, not every auction ends well...

The plastic bag you see (with a gaping hole) was supposed to contain an entire Lego figure (a Royal Guard figure to be precise).  Unfortunately, the hole in the plastic bag was foreshadowed by the ripped envelope that was sitting in my mailbox.

When I did open the envelope up, I found most of the figurine in place...though no hat (probably the thickest part of the figure and the part that must have gotten caught in a mail machine at some point in time).  One of the little guy's hands were shattered as well.

The yellow bit at the bottom is the other half of the guard's hand.

And so now, I have "half" a guard with nothing to do with it.  Like my box full of 1987 Topps cards, I can't bring myself to throw the figure out...but at the same time it's basically garbage in terms of being a collectible.

He's not nearly so cool without the hat (and half his hand lying on the ground).

Oh well, I guess you can't win them all.

I should mention that the seller was great about refunding my credits, something that I definitely appreciated.