Understanding accurate grading comes from understanding the criteria for each grade, and then being honest with yourself about how those criteria apply to the book you are grading. It's also extremely helpful to repeat the process over and over until you have trained yourself on what to look for at a glance. Grading a book is not difficult, and knowing your grading criteria is essential when you are buying on the fly at a shop or convention, if for nothing else but to understand whether you are over-paying for a book or not.

Unfortunately, the slabbing industry has dumbed down lazy collectors and tends to drive interest in the speculator side of the game. To this day, CGC has never been directly forthcoming about their specific grading criteria, whether they follow time-tested Overstreet guidelines, or whether they just wing it from book to book with their own set of secret proprietary standards. I am one of those who is highly skeptical of anybody who has a financial incentive to grade a book higher than its actual condition, but that's exactly how the CGC game works-- the higher the grade, the more you pay. The simple fact that there are many, many instances where a book has been graded, then removed from its slab and sent in again and received a different grade is indicative of the fact that grading can be extremely subjective depending on the knowledge and honesty of the grader.

Now, if you like paying for slabbed books, and don't want to be bothered with the effort of grading things yourself, then by all means, enjoy your slabs-- it's your money, spend it however you wish. Although I own a few slabbed books from some purchases and trades, I do not send books in for grading and slabbing, as I do understand Overstreet grading standards, and I do not need a third party to tell me the condition of my book. Because of this, I tend to under-grade more often than not to be on the safe side. A good comics dealer understands this approach, and also understands that fair, critical under-grading tends to pay long term dividends in increased sales. Too many people just want to make a quick buck to turn a hot book, not realizing that buyer remorse is often a very real thing, and if a dealer develops a reputation for sketchy grading and selling at top dollar, they are cutting their nose off to spite their face in the long run. Conversely, if a dealer develops a reputation for fair, honest grading and fair pricing, they will reap the benefits of repeat business. It's quite simple... A book doesn't HAVE to be priced at a rock-bottom price, but make the buyer at least FEEL like they're getting a small bargain by under-grading slighty and pricing the book accordingly.

Finally, as inconvenient and unfair as it may sound, grading criteria are not variable based on the age of the book. A golden age book should have to meet the same criteria as a bronze age book in order to reach the same grade. However, because of this, lower-grade golden age books (e.g. 4.0 or lower) are more often readily accepted in the collecting community than bronze age books of similar grade.