*UPDATE* I hope a few of you were able to jump on this. They went to backordered in just the last couple hours. I will no longer be updating this thread.

*UPDATE* I did indeed ship same-day, and since I live in Indiana, I will see it next day (today).

And yep, I also hate to say $429 is a deal... but it is. But I live by the grip. It's worth it to me at almost any price... and I don't think it's going to go below $400 for quite a long time. I've been shooting without one for the past month, and it's killing me. So many of my vertical shots are ever-so-slightly tilted because I have to get my arm pushed over more than is comfortable. Not to mention, the D800 has noticeably worse battery life than my D700... so I *really* don't want to have to worry about changing batteries so often.

I'd hate to say that $429 for a vertical grip is a deal... but it seems that it's the lowest price yet. I've always had a Nikon vert. grip on all my cameras so far. The grips just make them so much easier to handle. But I'm not buying one for my D800 until the price comes down. There's not that much to them to demand such a high price. Come on Nikon don't gouge us twice as much as normal.

PCNation has the MB-D12 in stock for $429 with free UPS ground or 3-day FedEx. I think they ship out of Illinois.

http://www.pcnation.com/web/details.asp?item=2N468P

I must admit I was a little nervous as the display image is definitely NOT an MB-D12, and I thought it may be one of those situations where the website always says in-stock and they would call me. Well, it's "Packed - Ready for carrier pickup" and their website still says in-stock... so I'm calling it legit.