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Terry's Con Report Part 8 - Terry's Wall Getting to look at Terry's GA books was like being in the "In Crowd." You had to be on "The List" to get into his inner sanctum. I got in only because @Ricksneatstuff and @Robot Man vouched for me. It was like getting into a trendy speakeasy, you know, where you have to know the password to get into the door, and all the pretty leggy girls are wearing short dresses with Jimmy Choos, and they're pouring Pappy Van Wrinkle. Okay, not really. Terry had to limit access because he had limited staff. (But sipping bourbon while shifting through long boxes isn't a crazy idea. Maybe next year ....) Anyway, since I spent most of my time at the con looking through Terry's GA boxes, I was able to take a lot of pictures of his wall books. Here they are:

Thanks!

Bob, I saw when you opened your wallet to make change, next year you better get a Brinks truck to get home.

I love this cover. Still haven't got one yet.

I bought the Sheena (Jumbo Comics) from him, so I think it was Empire Comics. Your picture reminds me that I meant to ask him about the Doll Man. Ugh!

Thanks BB. I think you had the best inventory of Bakers in the room. Also great selection of GI Jane (wish my pictures were sharper!).

Congrats on your pickups. That Junior JSA kit is very cool. I missed that one completely.

I can talk about wine all day. It's what I collect, in addition to comics. My favorites are brunellos and barolos, but I also love New World pinots. And there's nothing better than an over-the-top Cali cab with a big steak.

Thanks! I really enjoyed meeting you in person.

Thanks! Rangers is my favorite Fiction House.

Thanks Rick! Still hoping for your post-con sale.

Terry's Con Report Part 7 - The Really Good Stuff It was about 3pm at the con, and I'd met the boardies I wanted to meet, and I'd bought the comics shown in my previous posts. So I was happy with the con. I thought it was worth coming. I was thinking about leaving. I was tired and concerned about traffic back to the airport. I had a lot of time -- my flight didn't board until 1030pm -- but I wanted to get to the airport, find a bar and chill with my computer and WIFI. I made one more pass through the room. I stopped at Elite Comics. He had a couple boxes of raw and a box of graded comics. I had low expectations, but then in the CGC box I found this. And then this: And finally this: I couldn't believe it -- 3 of my grails. And all 3 books hiding in a short box. That's what I mean about this con. There were as many gems in boxes as on the walls. It was the Airboy comic that decided it for me. I wanted all 3 books. So after a couple minutes of negotiation (and more pain to my paypal account) the books were mine. It turned the con from a good to a great con.

Terry's Con Report Part 6 - Stuff To Submit to CGC Here are a few nicer books I bought at the con, that I'm thinking about submitting to CGC.

Terry's Con Report Part 5 - Stuff From Terry's Comics Here are some of the stuff I got from Terry. I felt like I was buying from sales threads of @Ricksneatstuff and @jimjum12 as I hurried pulled comics from the long boxes. The highest price was $150, but most were much less. For example, the Brenda Starr was $50. And then Terry gave me a fair volume discount.

Terry's Con Report Part 4 - Stuff From @Robot Man Here are some of the books I bought from @Robot Man. As I'm anal I put them in alphabetical order.

If I had gone I would have saved about 1.5 days of my life

Ah, you're of course right.

Terry's Con Report Part 3 I'm trying to get more pictures in shape for posting, but here's my bottom line review of the con. It was definitely work the effort to go, even though right now I'm a zombie from taking the red eye home last night. This is one of those cons where there are more gems hidden in the long boxes than the walls. I left early but only because I was way pass my budget and I finally told myself I had to stop buying. I didn't even make it to some tables and I wonder what treasures I left there. And dealers were willing to deal! Not big dealers like Terry (although he did give me a fair volume discount), but from other people I was getting big time discounts. Compare that to NYCC that I went to late last year. I left the con with money to spend, and what money I spent was mostly with artists rather than comic dealers (and not by choice; I'd rather it be the other way around). And discounts were light and hard to get. Let me give you 2 examples. Here are my last 2 buys before I headed to the airport. I wasn't looking to buy anything more but the deals were too good to turn down (although my paypal account is feeling the pain today). I ended up not buying anything from Harley only because his booth was one of the last I went to, and by then I'd spent too much (even though he had some good books for good prices on sale). My point being, I thought the selection was really good at this con, and the pricing was fair. Sure there were lots out of my price range. But there were more comics in my price range than I could afford to buy.

Terry's Con Report Part 2 Before flying out to LA, my wife says "So you're going all the way out to LA for a 1 day con? You're flying out Saturday and coming back Sunday night. Is this worth it?" I have to admit I was having second thoughts, especially since I was in SF earlier that week for work. So in the span of 5 days I'd gone from DC to SF, back to DC, then LA, then back to DC. And on top of that, on Thursday I'm going to Germany/Bulgaria for 10 days for work. So as I was sitting in my hotel room Saturday eating carryout chinese food, and this was after going to the swap which was pretty much a non-event for me, I was definitely wondering what I was doing going to this one day con. Things didn't start well on Sunday. The con started at 930am and I got there right at 930. There was a line to get in but not too bad. Not like SDCC or NYCC or even a WW con. Here's a picture of the line to get in from where I was standing. But it took forever to get in, just under 30 minutes, which didn't seem warranted given the relatively short length of the line. I started having deja vu of SDCC. The people working were very helpful and they were working hard. Problem was, the registration area only had space for 2 people, and they had to deal with cash, credit cards and those who bought on the internet. On top of that, they had to tear raffle tickets for each person. I read someone else saying it took 1.5 hours to get through the line. I find that hard to believe but then I wasn't paying attention to the line once I got in. So anyway, once I got in I did a quick reconnoiter of the floor. There were 2 rooms, the main room and the auxiliary room (that's how I thought of them). All the action was in the main room (at least for the stuff I was looking for), so I didn't spend much time in the aux room. Here are 2 pics of the aux room. This was about 4pm when the crowd was thinning out. Still, the traffic in the aux room seemed to be much less than the main room. Here's a pic of the aux room earlier in the day when the crowd was better. One of the main things I wanted to do at this con was meet some boardies in person. So, after my quick reconnoiter, I looked for @Robot Man who I knew had a table. It's not easy to find someone when you only know their board name, and not their real name, or what they look like. But I was able to locate Robot on the first try, by what he was selling on his table. I met @Tri-ColorBrian at his booth. Here's a picture of Bob (Robot) in front of his wall. As you can see, he prefers to keep his secret identity intact. I bought a bunch of comics from Robot, which I'll talk about later. Then I headed over to Terry's comics. That's where I met @Ricksneatstuff in person. I also met @Dreamtoreal1 (Pablo) and we completed an earlier buy here on the boards. Then we had fun going through Terry's golden age boxes. It took me a couple hours to go through all the boxes. Here's a picture of them standing from one end of his booth. I'll post more about what I bought later. If you look the other way, you could see the line out the door to the CGC table. The line was pretty steady all day. Before the show, I considered bringing some books in for grading, to save shipping. I'm glad I didn't. Saving the shipping wouldn't have been worth it to stand in this line.

Terry's Con Report Part 1 Here's my report of Terry's Con (Cal Con 2018). On Saturday I flew in from DC. The traffic was horrendous from LAX to my hotel (I stayed at the Fairfield Inn rather than the Ayres as I'm always chasing after Starwood points). So, I didn't get to the swap at the Ayres hotel until about 5pm. The pickings were slim by that point, and I thought prices were high. I heard you had to be there right at 330 when it opened for the good stuff, and there was a lot of money flowing on big books. Maybe someone who got there early can provide details. Here are some pictures of the swap. I wanted to buy something at the swap, so I ended up with this:

I enjoyed meeting you too Pablo. Fun going through Terry's GA boxes together.

I flew in from DC solely for this show, and now I have the misery of a red-eye flight home so I can get to work tomorrow. In other words, it was a pain-in-the-*** for me to get to this show. On top of that, my plane on Saturday was late so I missed all the really good stuff being offered at preview night. So you can imagine the show would have to be stellar to make it worth it. Well, let me just tell you, this far exceeded my expectations. Well worth the effort, and my wallet is feeling it. More later once I can get the pics from my phone and ipad.

Starts in 30 min