How many collectors can tell the difference between a 9 and a 9.8. The price difference is astronomical and the reason CGC exists is because of people not trusting their local dealer. I don't get it and never will. It turns $500 books into $5000 books. Why? because someone stuck their head up the butchers ass err... because a grading expert says so. Come on! this is the equivalent of the sports card chase card that ruined that hobby. You can no longer buy a non CGC high grade book because everyone wants paid because their book looks good.
If you can't tell the difference between a 9.0 and a 9.8 you shouldn't be buying back issues, period. That's like asking a poster collector if they can tell the difference between a VF/NM poster and a NM/M one. The reason people have gravitated to CGC is because of
local & national dealers. You know, the ones that knowingly overgraded books or didn't disclose restoration. They only have their greedy, unethical asses to blame for the explosion of slabbed books. That's why there are still old school dealers that despise CGC - they can't pass off their overgraded, restored books anymore. I see that all the time at cons. Has CGC priced many books out of collectors' budgets? They sure have, but they've also allowed the average collector to be able to buy and sell on par with the dealer - something they couldn't do before. I've heard dealers bitch about people wanting slabbed prices for their raw books, then the same dealers price their inventory the same way! Dependent on what you collect, you can buy slabbed books for less than their raw counterpart, crack it out and have a decent looking copy to read. I can send you links to dealers that primarily deal in raw comics if you like, again, depending on what you collect.
