Reporting here that my combined package finally arrived after having done an extended tour of the Eastern Seaboard. all in good order, no damages nor scratches, which i find extraordinary. i do note that the combined order was shipped from a US address, the Cainiao (Sp?) service. i wonder if they ship some items to the address (New Jersey for those in the US) and combine and then ship from there. normally i think this would hav arrived very quickly, less than 14 days, but i suspect the mix up was with USPS. I have read elsewhere that the shipping bags sellers use these days sometimes confuse the sorting machines that USPS uses. taking that with a grain of salt, as it is totally just a guess.