Posted By:
E, Danieland even participated in the anomoly.
It's largely a function of these amazingly high prices and the ongoing trend upwards. At a point, most hobbyists can only afford to buy in at one level and will spend every dollar they have up to that amount, regardless of the grade if it means they can add the card to their collection. Add $200 to that amount and even though the condition may be exponentially better, they just can't come up with the extra dough - so they just spend all they can to at least partake in the market. Competition is just that tight and people aren't prepared to wait 18 months to add a dearly desired card to their collection.
If a bunch of people all have $600 max to spend (and only a very few have $1000 plus to spend), and a Cobb SGC40 runs $875, then all those buyers will compete for every available 10/20/30 with perhaps premium placed on eye appeal and not so much grade. With higher grades only affordable to a few, the rest of the market has really been squeezed and demand pushes even low condition examples ever upwards.
Hope I made some sense, but if not I'm sure someone will follow me who does 
.
Daniel