In total, the submitted cards were worth just under $5,100 before the cost of grading. We also had very strong grading results, which contributed to the strong profitability you will see below.

In total, we projected just a 43% gem rate on our submitted cards (which would mean just 3 or 4 of the 8 cards grade as PSA 10s), but we actually received 6 PSA 10s, good for 75%.

This isn’t too surprising — we generally overperform our estimates and are actively working on improving our modeling to be more accurate. With that said, usually the overperformance is not this extreme.

Biggest Surprises

There were a few cards which we thought had fairly low chances at grading as PSA 10s that wound up grading as 10s. When these low probability cards grade as PSA 10s, they usually drive strong profitability above projections.

1. 2024 Caitlin Clark Prizm WNBA Logo #145

Main Defect: White dots/marks covering portion of the front surface.
Expected PSA 10 Probability: 30%
Actual Grade: PSA 10

We felt that this card had a chance of grading as a PSA 10, as these surface marks were small and didn’t create any indentations into the card (read more here). With that said, we’ve never submitted a card with marks quite like this, so we were pleasantly surprised by the result.

2. 2023 Victor Wembanyama Prizm Silver #136

Main Defect: Small indent on top edge on back of the card.
Expected PSA 10 Probability: 25%
Actual Grade: PSA 10

We’re very cautious with edge issues because we find that PSA is very strict with these, but in this case the defect was pretty small. Also note that there is a print line in the picture above, but because this print line was only visible in certain lighting, it was unlikely to have a major effect on grading (read more here).

Profitability Review

Net Purchase Price includes all PSA grading costs. Net Sale Price includes the sale price less any eBay/PSA selling fees. Cards that have not sold yet will show the Net Sale Price based on CardLadder Value Estimate.

1. 2018 Yordan Alvarez Bowman Chrome Auto Blue PSA 9

ROI & Profitability:

Net Sale Price (estimated) | $1,364.40
Net Purchase Price | $744.96
Total Profit | $619.44
Total ROI | 83.15%

Notes: We’ve gotten a bit of a boost in value from this card from Alvarez’s Triple Crown-contending season, which is why we’re projecting solid profit even on a PSA 9. Net Sale Price estimated based on CardLadder’s value estimate of $1,516, less the 10% fee that PSA Vault charges on cards over $1,000.

2. 2024 Caitlin Clark Prizm WNBA Logo #145 PSA 10

ROI & Profitability:

Net Sale Price (estimated) | $1,642.50
Net Purchase Price | $715.55
Total Profit | $926.95
Total ROI | 129.54%

Notes: Pretty much all the 2024 Prizm cards graded at pretty low Gem Rates, so I was a bit surprised by this PSA 10. Net Sale Price estimated based on CardLadder’s value estimate of $1,825, less the 10% fee that PSA Vault charges on cards over $1,000.

3. 2023 Victor Wembanyama Prizm Silver #136 PSA 10

ROI & Profitability:

Net Sale Price | $2,798.25
Net Purchase Price | $894.00
Total Profit | $1,904.25
Total ROI | 213.00%

Notes: This is generally a card that has a high multiple (i.e. the PSA 10 price is much higher than the raw price), but we also got a boost in value from Wemby’s NBA Finals run.

4. 2025 Cooper Flagg Topps Chrome Sapphire #251 PSA 10

ROI & Profitability:

Net Sale Price | $2,502.50
Net Purchase Price | $1,138.32
Total Profit | $1,364.18
Total ROI | 119.84%

Notes: We got a bit lucky here, as this card’s market rose a bit for no apparent reason while it was in grading. Note too that the centering for 2025 Topps Chrome products is quite tricky. You can read our analysis of that here.

5. 2018 Shohei Ohtani Topps Chrome #150 PSA 10

ROI & Profitability:

Net Sale Price | $1,461.40
Net Purchase Price | $601.37
Total Profit | $860.03
Total ROI | 143.01%

Notes: This is a card we’ve bought a lot of, and almost all have graded as PSA 10s. We’ve made more money on Shohei Ohtani cards than any other player/TCG character since starting this business.

6. 2024 Konnor Griffin Bowman Chrome Auto PSA 10

ROI & Profitability:

Net Sale Price | $1,117.43
Net Purchase Price | $770.95
Total Profit | $346.48
Total ROI | 44.94%

Notes: Unfortunately, Griffin has missed most of this season due to an injury, which held down the profit on this card in spite of it grading as a PSA 10.

7. 2018 Shohei Ohtani Topps Chrome #HMT32 PSA 10

ROI & Profitability:

Net Sale Price | $1,012.32
Net Purchase Price | $479.99
Total Profit | $532.33
Total ROI | 110.90%

Notes: This is another Topps Chrome Ohtani that we’ve gotten mostly PSA 10s on, leading to strong profitability.

8. 2018 Shohei Ohtani Topps Gold Label Class 1 #17 PSA 9

ROI & Profitability:

Net Sale Price | $390.92
Net Purchase Price | $461.61
Total Profit | -$70.69
Total ROI | -15.31%

Notes: We thought this card looked like a PSA 10 when we submitted it, but grading is subjective and paper cards can be tricky. In general, we have no problem with small losses on anything that grades as a PSA 9.

Overall Results

Total Net Sale Price | $12,289.72
Total Net Purchase Price | $5,806.75
Total Submission Profit | $6,482.97
Total Submission ROI | 111.65%

Generally we target a minimum of 25% ROI, but on average we outperform this by a lot. This is for a few reasons. One is that this is a minimum threshold, which means we actually project about 25% returns on most of what we buy. Additionally, we usually get more PSA 10s than we estimate. Finally, for this submission in particular, the cards we submitted rose in value on average, which of course further helps to boost returns.

This is a good look at what a strong PSA submission looks like. Even for us, our average ROI tends to be closer to 40%, and we usually have a handful of losses on cards that grade as PSA 9s and under.

Most Profitable To Buy & Grade Now

Disclaimer: This section contains eBay affiliate links, and we may receive commission for completed purchases. Thanks for supporting BCG Cards!

1. 2023 All Aces Shohei Ohtani

This is our most bought card of 2026 by a lot. These go for around $1,000 as PSA 10s and have a Gem Rate north of 50%.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

2. 2018 Topps Chrome Shohei Ohtani HMT1

This continues to be one of our most bought cards, with PSA 10 values around $1,000, raw values around $300, and a Gem Rate above 60%.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

3. Dylan Harper Topps Chrome #252

This might be the card with the best grading math on the market now. Specifically, the Refractor and Blue X-Fractor have great grading math, while the Prism Refractor and X-Fractor are great if you’re buying on a budget.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

4. 2020 Bowman Chrome Pete Crow-Armstrong Refractor

Great cheap card to get some exposure to the MVP favorite. Raw cards go for around $150, while PSA 10s are over $800.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

5. 2022 Bowman Chrome Sapphire Jacob Misiorowski

Like the PCA above, this is a cheap way to buy the Cy Young favorite. You can find raw cards for as low as $200, while PSA 10s go for around $800.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

The Spurs enter the 2026-27 season again looking like a contender for the NBA Finals, and all eyes will of course be on Victor Wembanyama. But if the Spurs want to take the next step, the continued growth of Dylan Harper could be the key.

Overall this is a player I like a lot (but more importantly, the profitability math behind grading his cards is very strong). In his rookie season he showed the rare combination of being both a strong defensive guard and shot creator, all while playing meaningful minutes in the Spurs NBA Finals run.

For each of the cards below, I’m willing to (and do) pay above “raw market price” because the profitability on each card is so high. I will try to indicate the price points that I’m willing to buy each of these cards. Additionally, different parallels are worth considering for each. For instance, basically every Topps Chrome #252 parallel is worth buying at the right price, but for the sake of being concise I will only present three of these.

PSA 8 probability included in calculations for all cards with PSA 8 rates of 10% or higher. Market estimates based on recent eBay sales as of 9/17/2026. Round-trip shipping costs for PSA grading are estimated at $20 per card. This is not investment advice; do your own research before making any purchases.

Dylan Harper Rookie Cards To Grade Now

Analysis based on Expected Value (EV). Read the full EV tutorial here.

Expected Value = PSA 10 Value x Gem Rate + PSA 9 Value x (100% - Gem Rate - PSA 8 Rate) + PSA 8 Value x (PSA 8 Rate) - Grading Costs - Selling Fees

2025 Topps Chrome #252

I’ve bought tons of this product, and specifically the three cards below. Like I mentioned above, there are other profitable parallels, but these are three of the most common ones to find. I will also provide a general link to all Dylan Harper Topps Chrome #252 cards here:

TC #252 For Sale (eBay Affiliate Link)

Also note that Topps Chrome has released its Topps Chrome Update product recently. I would recommend avoiding those for now: there is just not enough data to have reliable Gem Rates and market values needed to make smart buying and grading decisions.

You can find our guide to Measuring 2025 Topps Chrome Centering here and the Complete Guide to PSA Grading here.

2025 Topps Chrome Dylan Harper Refractor

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $75
PSA 10 Value | $1,200
PSA 9 Value | $175
Gem Rate | 26.4%

PSA 8 Probability

PSA 8 Value | $70
PSA 8 Rate | 17.7%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $281.29
Expected Profit | $206.29
Expected ROI | 275.05%

Notes: This card has extremely strong profitability, but the Gem Rate is low, so the trick here is trying to find a PSA 10 worthy copy. I’m happy to pay well over $100 if I find a good one.

eBay Affiliate Links

For Sale Now | Recent Sales

2025 Topps Chrome Dylan Harper X-Fractor

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $60
PSA 10 Value | $580
PSA 9 Value | $100
Gem Rate | 42.1%

PSA 8 Probability

PSA 8 Value | $45
PSA 8 Rate | 13.6%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Standard
Expected Value | $176.11
Expected Profit | $116.11
Expected ROI | 193.52%

Notes: Similar to the refractor above, this card has strong profitability and a relatively low Gem Rate (although this one is a bit better around 42%). If I can find a gemable copy, I’d be happy to pay around $100.

eBay Affiliate Links

For Sale Now | Recent Sales

2025 Topps Chrome Dylan Harper Blue X-Fractor

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $300
PSA 10 Value | $1,400
PSA 9 Value | $380
Gem Rate | 52.0%

PSA 8 Probability

PSA 8 Value | $205
PSA 8 Rate | 14.4%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $690.05
Expected Profit | $390.05
Expected ROI | 130.02%

Notes: This is another one that I’ve bought a lot of, and one of the reasons for that is it’s a bit easier to grade, with the Gem Rate on this card above 50%.

With that said, make sure that you only buy these in the Topps original seal (as pictured below).

Oftentimes, when a seller takes the card out of the seal it’s because they were evaluating the card for grading and decided that it was not a PSA 10 candidate. It’s best to avoid these.

Given the strong profitability math, I’m happy to pay over $400 for a clean, sealed copy.

eBay Affiliate Links

For Sale Now | Recent Sales

Autos & Other Inserts

2025 Topps Chrome Dylan Harper Autograph Issue

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $450
PSA 10 Value | $1,900
PSA 9 Value | $460
Gem Rate | 69.0%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular with upcharge if PSA 10
Expected Value | $1,149.05
Expected Profit | $699.05
Expected ROI | 155.34%

Notes: This is a great card to buy given the high Gem Rate and strong grading math, but of course the issue here will be that these are a bit more rare than the Topps Chrome #252 cards from above.

I’d actually be willing to pay as high as around $700 for this card, given that a PSA 10 is worth nearly $2K, but only if I was very confident in the condition.

Side note: there is another version of this card with Harper dribbling the ball in his right hand, which is a different but similar card. It’s still buyable, but the grading math is not as strong as this one.

eBay Affiliate Links

For Sale Now | Recent Sales

2025 Bowman Chrome Dylan Harper Etched In Glass

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $280
PSA 10 Value | $1,625
PSA 9 Value | $330
Gem Rate | 36.8%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Standard
Expected Value | $620.35
Expected Profit | $340.35
Expected ROI | 121.55%

Notes: I haven’t bought this card yet so I don’t have a lot of notes here. With that said, I’d be willing to pay around $400 for a raw copy if I was confident in condition.

eBay Affiliate Links

For Sale Now | Recent Sales

2025 Bowman Dylan Harper Spotlights

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $380
PSA 10 Value | $2,000
PSA 9 Value | $445
Gem Rate | 35.7%

PSA 8 Probability

PSA 8 Value | $335*
PSA 8 Rate | 17.9%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular with upcharge if PSA 10
Expected Value | $750.30
Expected Profit | $370.30
Expected ROI | 97.45%

Notes: These Bowman Spotlight cards generally have strong profitability (but can be tricky to grade). I’ve considered making an entire post on this product line as it’s one that we’ve been targeting. Overall, I’d be willing to pay as high as $500 for a clean copy.

*PSA 8 value is an estimate as no sales have been completed on eBay.

eBay Affiliate Links

For Sale Now | Recent Sales

2025 Patrick Mahomes Topps Chrome Tecmo

We like taking swings on expensive cards, and this was certainly an expensive card at $3,200. And this card came with some risks. As you can see below, there were some print lines (probably) on the back of the card.

With that said, the last PSA 10 sale was $10,500 so the risk reward is strong, even though the card has a Gem Rate of just 40.0%.

2024 George Lombard BC Speckle Refractor Auto /299

This looked like a very clean card, and Lombard cards had a lot of momentum following his call-up to the big leagues. We bought this one for just over $800, which feels a bit scarier now after his performance has been shaky at the MLB level, including a stretch of 6 straight games with an error and mediocre hitting. At the same time, a PSA 10 sold for $2,200 on 9/9/2026, and the Gem Rate is well above 60%. We’ll be happy if that market value holds.

2025 Dylan Harper TC Autograph Issue Purple /75

I actually think we got a great price on this one, at around $1,100. From the pictures, the card looked nearly perfect, but the market is a bit undefined given that the card is fairly new and numbered /75. The last PSA 10 sale was an auction for over $3,000 in August and the Gem Rate is again above 50%. This was a strong purchase of one of our most bought players of the last month.

2025 Caleb Williams TC Blue Lava Auto /150

This was not technically one of our biggest purchases but I really like this card, and I like it more now that Caleb and the Bears dropped 59 points in week 1 of the NFL season. We paid a bit over $550, which I’m not certain was a great deal. This card looked clean but in general these 2025 Topps Chrome Rookie Auto products aren’t grading super well. This one in particular has graded as a PSA 10 on 5 of 16 submissions, meaning the Gem Rate is around 30%.

But the biggest challenge is that defining the market was quite tricky.

On the one hand, the most recent PSA 10 sale was $1,150 back in June. But recent PSA 9 sales have pushed $1,200, and the Caleb Williams market is trending up in general.

Putting it all together, we think the market today is meaningfully higher than it was in June, and came up with an estimate that a PSA 10 would sell for $1,500 today. I don’t have a lot of confidence in that estimate, but I have no problem taking calculated risks.

Most Profitable To Buy & Grade Now

Disclaimer: This section contains eBay affiliate links, and we may receive commission for completed purchases. Thanks for supporting BCG Cards!

1. 2023 All Aces Shohei Ohtani

This is our most bought card of 2026 by a lot. These go for just under $1,000 as PSA 10s and have a Gem Rate north of 50%.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

2. 2018 Topps Chrome Shohei Ohtani HMT1

This continues to be one of our most bought cards, with PSA 10 values just under $1,000, raw values around $300, and a Gem Rate above 60%.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

3. Dylan Harper Topps Chrome #252

This might be the card with the best grading math on the market now. Specifically, the Refractor and Blue X-Fractor have great grading math, while the Prism Refractor and X-Fractor are great if you’re buying on a budget.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

4. 2020 Bowman Chrome Pete Crow-Armstrong Refractor

Great cheap card to get some exposure to the MVP favorite. Raw cards go for around $150, while PSA 10s are over $700.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

5. 2022 Bowman Chrome Sapphire Jacob Misiorowski

Like the PCA above, this is a cheap way to buy the Cy Young favorite. You can find raw cards for as low as $200, while PSA 10s go for around $800.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

This follows a positive backlog update from PSA on Tuesday, which you can find below. As you guys know, PSA recently shut down all Value tier services due to a backlog that peaked at 12.4 million cards.

A few things to note here:

1. The backlog fell by one million cards in just two weeks. This is definitely making me feel optimistic that PSA is actually on track to catch up. It probably helps as well that the TCG market has slowed down, leading to much less submission volume.

2. They were considering reopening a service tier by the end of the month, which ended up happening yesterday.

3. The turnaround time on the Standard service is 4-5 months. While the opening of a new service tier is a sign of progress, this is basically the old Bulk service at triple the price, which was most recently 90 business days for $24.99.

With that said, I’m feeling good about PSA’s progress overall. I was a bit worried about a month ago when PSA sent the email below to its customers:

This applied to the Regular service turnaround time, which was 20-25 business days in early 2026, but was extended to 40-50 business days when Value tier services were paused, and then in this email was further extended to 70-80 business days.

So where does that leave us now? We’ll see, but my thought is that because PSA is actively clearing through their backlog, and clearly submission volume is down, we could see turnaround times speed up soon.

For now, we will keep submitting cards at the Regular service level in hopes that this happens soon, but there are no guarantees given that this has been the worst PSA slowdown since COVID times.

Most Profitable To Buy & Grade Now

Disclaimer: This section contains eBay affiliate links, and we may receive commission for completed purchases. Thanks for supporting BCG Cards!

1. 2023 All Aces Shohei Ohtani

This is our most bought card of 2026 by a lot. These go for around $1,000 as PSA 10s and have a Gem Rate north of 50%.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

2. 2018 Topps Chrome Shohei Ohtani HMT1

This continues to be one of our most bought cards, with PSA 10 values over $1,000, raw values around $300, and a Gem Rate above 60%.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

3. 2020 Bowman Chrome Pete Crow-Armstrong Refractor

Great cheap card to get some exposure to the MVP favorite. Raw cards go for around $150, while PSA 10s are over $600.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

4. 2022 Bowman Chrome Sapphire Jacob Misiorowski

Like the PCA above, this is a cheap way to buy the Cy Young favorite. You can find raw cards for as low as $200, while PSA 10s go for around $800.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

Another set we’ve been looking at lately is the Topps Chrome Glass Canvas products. While these have somewhat low Gem Rates, with the set average around 41%, the multiples (premium for PSA 10) are quite high which is driving profitability (read more here).

Centering is tough on this set, but the large borders are forgiving. Moderate off-center measurements can still fall within range simply because there’s more border to work with (find more on how to measure centering here).

Front surface scratching is probably the biggest issue, as the shiny and textured material seems prone to production issues. It’s usually minor, and in general we’re okay submitting cards with as much as two to three small scratches (more on this here). But we’ve also seen a couple of these just covered in small markings that left the card unsubmittable. For reference, here’s what these tend to look like.

In general, the challenge with this set isn’t the math, or even the condition, it’s just finding the cards on the market. These are somewhat rare so it’s more of a card to flag when you it see on auction or a new listing rather than being able to really seek it out. Still, I will include links on each card below if you want to try.

And one final note before we look at the cards: make sure you’re buying Topps Chrome product, not Topps Chrome Update. It’s too early to buy the Update version, mainly because there isn’t enough grading data yet. That said, we’re optimistic on it going forward. It has most of the top rookies (TC Glass Canvas skews more toward established players and hall of famers), the early cards we’ve seen look solid, and there’s plenty of raw supply on the market.

PSA 8 probability included in calculations for all cards with PSA 8 rates of 10% or higher. Market estimates based on recent eBay sales as of 9/8/2026. Round-trip shipping costs for PSA grading are estimated at $20 per card. This is not investment advice; do your own research before making any purchases.

2025 Glass Canvas Cards To Grade Now

Analysis based on Expected Value (EV). Read the full EV tutorial here.

Expected Value = PSA 10 Value x Gem Rate + PSA 9 Value x (100% - Gem Rate - PSA 8 Rate) + PSA 8 Value x (PSA 8 Rate) - Grading Costs - Selling Fees

2025 Lebron James Glass Canvas #GC-1

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $825
PSA 10 Value | $2,700
PSA 9 Value | $975
Gem Rate | 53.2%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular (with upcharge if PSA 10)
Expected Value | $1,551.57
Expected Profit | $726.57
Expected ROI | 88.07%

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

2025 Stephen Curry Glass Canvas #GC-6

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $750
PSA 10 Value | $3,000
PSA 9 Value | $900
Gem Rate | 33.0%

PSA 8 Probability

PSA 8 Value | $500
PSA 8 Rate | 17.5%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular (with upcharge if PSA 10)
Expected Value | $1,358.99
Expected Profit | $608.99
Expected ROI | 81.2%

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

2025 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Glass Canvas #GC-4

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $285
PSA 10 Value | $1,425
PSA 9 Value | $370
Gem Rate | 34.5%

PSA 8 Probability

PSA 8 Value | $240
PSA 8 Rate | 12.4%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $540.52
Expected Profit | $255.52
Expected ROI | 89.66%

Note: On this card specifically, be careful because there is a Topps Chrome Update version that looks similar.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

2025 Jalen Brunson Glass Canvas #GC-17

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $345
PSA 10 Value | $1,300
PSA 9 Value | $360
Gem Rate | 41.9%

PSA 8 Probability

PSA 8 Value | $260
PSA 8 Rate | 10.8%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $663.10
Expected Profit | $318.10
Expected ROI | 92.20%

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

2025 Shaquille O’Neal Glass Canvas #GC-11

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $170
PSA 10 Value | $700
PSA 9 Value | $160
Gem Rate | 48.8%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $280.63
Expected Profit | $110.63
Expected ROI | 65.07%

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

Most Profitable To Buy & Grade Now

These are a few of our favorite cards to buy, grade, and sell now. With TCG markets slow and other sports out of season, baseball is the theme of the day.

1. 2023 Shohei Ohtani All Aces

This is our most bought card of 2026 by a lot. These go for around $1,000 as PSA 10s and have a Gem Rate north of 50%.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

2. 2025 Topps Chrome Cosmic Sun LeBron / Curry / Flagg

We’ve combined three separate cards into the link below. Each has strong Expected Profitability, with the Flagg card being the most expensive of the three. This set also has a Gem Rate above 50%.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

3. 2020 Bowman Chrome Pete Crow-Armstrong Refractor

Great cheap card to get some exposure to the MVP favorite. Raw cards go for around $150, while PSA 10s are over $600.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

4. 2022 Bowman Chrome Sapphire Jacob Misiorowski

Like the PCA above, this is a cheap way to buy the Cy Young favorite. You can find raw cards for as low as $200, while PSA 10s go for around $800.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

It’s been an interesting year as NFL and NBA licensing switches from Panini to Topps, and we get to find the new insert cards that we want to target for grading purposes. The one we’re talking about today, Topps Chrome Tecmo, is fun because it’s a set with a lot of upside but that’s also pretty tricky to grade.

The Topps Chrome Tecmo cards are found in the 2025 Topps Chrome Football product line, and are inspired by the old Tecmo Super Bowl video game. They are fairly rare and expensive, but at the same time there is enough volume that they are worth targeting specifically. The set is an interesting mix too, covering rookies from the 2025 rookie class, modern stars, and legend cards.

Because supply is limited, it’s a bit challenging to estimate market values, which introduces some risk when calculating EV. With that said, I’ll try to leave some notes about when markets are genuinely ambiguous, but for the most part, each card has at least a few sales as PSA 10s, 9s, and raw cards.

Additionally, grading is tricky. These are fairly low Gem Rate cards with the set average around 40% and a significant number of these cards getting PSA 8s or worse (about 17%). This makes sense, as the all black back of the card is pretty unforgiving. I recommend paying careful attention to whitening on the corners, edges, and surfaces on the back of the card. With all this in mind, we’ve included a PSA 8 probability in the calculations below. (You can also review our Complete Guide to PSA Grading here).

Given the challenges, this is not a great set for beginners, but for those who are comfortable taking some risk, there is a lot of profit potential. For our money, we’ve bought five of these so far, so it’s a product that we like and will continue targeting.

Estimates based on market values as of 9/4/2026. Round trip shipping costs for PSA grading are estimated at $20 per card. This is not investment advice; do your own research before making any purchases.

2025 Topps Chrome Tecmo To Grade Now

Analysis based on Expected Value (EV). Read the full EV tutorial here.

Expected Value = PSA 10 Value x Gem Rate + PSA 9 Value x (100% - Gem Rate - PSA 8 Rate) + PSA 8 Value x (PSA 8 Rate) - Grading Costs - Selling Fees

NFL Rookie Cards

1. 2025 Jaxson Dart Tecmo #19

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $1,650
PSA 10 Value | $4,700
PSA 9 Value | $1,850
Gem Rate | 46.6%

PSA 8 Probability

PSA 8 Value | $1,350*
PSA 8 Rate | 15.1%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Express (with upcharge if PSA 10)
Expected Value | $2,529.56
Expected Profit | $879.56
Expected ROI | 53.31%

*PSA 8 value estimated. No completed eBay sales.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

2. 2025 Cam Ward Tecmo #16

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $1,200
PSA 10 Value | $3,600
PSA 9 Value | $1,250
Gem Rate | 39.3%

PSA 8 Probability

PSA 8 Value | $870
PSA 8 Rate | 21.1%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular (with upcharge if PSA 10)
Expected Value | $1,677.67
Expected Profit | $477.67
Expected ROI | 39.81%

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

3. 2025 Travis Hunter Tecmo #17

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $725
PSA 10 Value | $2,950
PSA 9 Value | $775
Gem Rate | 42.1%

PSA 8 Probability

PSA 8 Value | $600
PSA 8 Rate | 15.4%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular (with upcharge if PSA 10)
Expected Value | $1,271.30
Expected Profit | $546.30
Expected ROI | 75.35%

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

NFL Stars

1. 2025 Patrick Mahomes Tecmo #21

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $3,400
PSA 10 Value | $9,500
PSA 9 Value | $3,315
Gem Rate | 39.7%

PSA 8 Probability

PSA 8 Value | $2,750
PSA 8 Rate | 14.3%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Super Express (with upcharge if PSA 10)
Expected Value | $4,651.51
Expected Profit | $1,251.51
Expected ROI | 36.81%

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

Side note: we bought one of these Mahomes cards yesterday with noticeable print lines on the back, but we felt it was worth the risk. That’s one of our biggest purchases so far.

2. 2025 Josh Allen Tecmo #25

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $2,075
PSA 10 Value | $4,400
PSA 9 Value | $2,400
Gem Rate | 50.8%

PSA 8 Probability

PSA 8 Value | $1,680
PSA 8 Rate | 13.1%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Express (with upcharge if PSA 10)
Expected Value | $2,719.23
Expected Profit | $644.23
Expected ROI | 31.05%

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

3. 2025 Jalen Hurts Tecmo #23

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $700
PSA 10 Value | $2,300
PSA 9 Value | $800
Gem Rate | 41.5%

PSA 8 Probability

PSA 8 Value | $575
PSA 8 Rate | 9.5%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular (with upcharge if PSA 10)
Expected Value | $1,121.41
Expected Profit | $421.41
Expected ROI | 60.20%

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

NFL Legends

1. 2025 Joe Montana Tecmo #7

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $925
PSA 10 Value | $3,000
PSA 9 Value | $1,200*
Gem Rate | 42.9%

PSA 8 Probability

PSA 8 Value | $1,000
PSA 8 Rate | 14.3%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular (with upcharge if PSA 10)
Expected Value | $1,532.84
Expected Profit | $607.84
Expected ROI | 65.71%

*PSA 9 value estimated. No completed eBay sales.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

2. 2025 John Elway Tecmo #11

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $650
PSA 10 Value | $2,200
PSA 9 Value | $950
Gem Rate | 32.1%

PSA 8 Probability

PSA 8 Value | $510
PSA 8 Rate | 21.4%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular (with upcharge if PSA 10)
Expected Value | $999.94
Expected Profit | $349.94
Expected ROI | 53.84%

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

3. 2025 Marcus Allen Tecmo #2

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $370
PSA 10 Value | $1,500
PSA 9 Value | $500
Gem Rate | 43.5%

PSA 8 Probability

PSA 8 Value | $300
PSA 8 Rate | 25.0%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $689.68
Expected Profit | $319.68
Expected ROI | 86.40%

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

The 2025 Topps Chrome products have been tricky for us this year. The TC Football set has just a 30% Gem Rate in spite of being a brand new product, while TC Basketball is just a touch better at 34%.

Still, this is a very buyable product from a grading perspective, as PSA 10s generally earn a significant premium over raw cards.

With all that said, this post is meant to focus specifically on one issue: how to measure the centering of these cards. The design this year features no clear border which makes it tricky to figure out what you should be looking for while grading.

As you can see below, there are two plausible ways you could measure both top/bottom and left/right centering.

Left/Right Centering

Method 1 (Black): The left border is measured from the edge of the blue and white panel to the left edge of the card. The right border (same for Method 1 and 2) is just the silver panel on the right portion of the card.

Method 2 (Red): Left border measured from the edge of the team name to the left edge of the card.

Top/Bottom Centering

Method 1 (Black): Measured based on the silver portion of the top and bottom borders, on the left part of the card.

Method 2 (Red): Measured based on the silver portion of the top and bottom borders, on the right part of the card.

What Rectifi Found

Rectifi already dug into this problem in detail, measuring 54 PSA 10s and 50 PSA 9s across 2025 Topps Chrome Basketball, Baseball, and F1 to figure out what PSA is actually doing. You can read the full breakdown here.

Essentially, they found that PSA will accept centering based on either Method 1 or Method 2. If both the TB and LR centering are in range by either measure, the card has the potential to grade as a PSA 10. They call this the “Flex Rule”.

For the record, I agree with this opinion. We’ll look at three example cards that illustrate this nicely.

Example Cards

To keep this concrete, we’re looking at three PSA 10 Cooper Flagg #251 cards. The centering between them varies a lot: notice how large the top border looks on the first card compared to the others, and how large the right border looks on the second. All three graded PSA 10.

Read our Complete Guide to PSA Grading for a refresher on how to measure centering.

Example 1

Left/Right:

• Method 1: 59.6 / 40.4

• Method 2: 49.8 / 50.2

Top/Bottom:

• Method 1: 54.1 / 45.9

• Method 2: 58.9 / 41.1

Notes:

As you’ll see, it’s common that on PSA 10s, the left/right centering is significantly out of range for one of the two measurement methods (and in range for the other). In this case, we have a PSA 10 with a relatively small right border, meaning that L/R centering is nearly perfect based on Method 2.

Additionally, this card has a relatively large top border, which is helped by using Method 1 for the TB centering, where this card falls just in range at 54.1 / 45.9, while Method 2 is well out of range.

Example 2

Left/Right:

• Method 1: 49.0 / 51.0

• Method 2: 35.2 / 64.8

Top/Bottom:

• Method 1: 47.8 / 52.2

• Method 2: 54.1 / 45.9

Notes: The LR centering is the exact opposite of the card above, with a relatively large right border leading to the centering being significantly out of range using Method 2 but almost perfect with Method 1. You’ll notice TB centering is within range with either method.

Example 3

Left/Right:

• Method 1: 63.7 / 36.3

• Method 2: 54.0 / 46.0

Top/Bottom:

• Method 1: 44.7 / 55.3

• Method 2: 50.7 / 49.3

Notes:

Like Example 1, this card also has a small right border, although this one takes it to a further extreme, making LR centering narrowly in range for Method 2, and well out of range using Method 1.

Additionally, this is the only card of the three that is technically out of range for TB centering using Method 1, although it’s close enough that this could just be human error in the measurement (and PSA sometimes gives 10s to cards slightly out of range). But it is worth noting that TB centering is perfect by Method 2.

Takeaways

To reiterate, I agree that the flex method is accurate for these 2025 Topps Chrome cards, and this means that there are a significant number of raw cards that are within PSA 10 range for centering, in spite of the massive variance from card to card. This makes this product line significantly more buyable for card graders.

It’s also worth mentioning that it seems the most common PSA 10 centering varies from card to card. For example, it seemed that for this specific Flagg card, the majority of PSA 10s had nearly perfect TB centering based on Method 1. But when I was looking at 2025 Topps Chrome Roki Sasaki autos today, they seemed to more commonly have nearly perfect TB centering based on Method 2. I’m not sure what to make of this, other than that it is an interesting pattern to be aware of.

Additionally, this sort of changes my view more generally on how to handle ambiguous borders. Going forward, I will be more open to the possibility that cards with undefined borders could be considered as PSA 10 centering if the visual appeal looks reasonably good, in spite of what Topps’s original design for the card may have been (which we obviously never know for sure).

Most Profitable To Buy & Grade Now

These are a few of our favorite cards to buy, grade, and sell now. With TCG markets slow and other sports out of season, baseball is the theme of the day.

1. 2023 Shohei Ohtani All Aces

This is our most bought card of 2026 by a lot. These go for around $1,000 as PSA 10s and have a Gem Rate north of 50%.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

2. 2025 Topps Chrome Cosmic Sun LeBron / Curry / Flagg

We’ve combined three separate cards into the link below. Each has strong Expected Profitability, with the Flagg card being the most expensive of the three. This set also has a Gem Rate above 50%.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

3. 2020 Bowman Chrome Pete Crow-Armstrong Refractor

Great cheap card to get some exposure to the MVP favorite. Raw cards go for around $150, while PSA 10s are over $600.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

4. 2022 Bowman Chrome Sapphire Jacob Misiorowski

Like the PCA above, this is a cheap way to buy the Cy Young favorite. You can find raw cards for as low as $200, while PSA 10s go for around $800.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

After a great start to the 2025 season (and ugly finish), Pete Crow-Armstrong has emerged this year not only as a challenger to Shohei Ohtani’s potential MVP three-peat in the National League, but now the odds-on favorite for the 2026 season. His numbers across the board this year are pretty insane, headlined by 8.5 WAR in 137 games with 38 HRs, 32 steals, all while playing elite defense in centerfield. Unsurprisingly, PCA has emerged as one of the best players to grade for profit right now.

We don’t have as much exposure now as we would like, but interestingly we were buying lots of these cards during PCA’s hot streak last year. That’s part of the point of this post: preparing our numbers to try to buy more of these cards, as it becomes more and more likely that Crow-Armstrong gets crowned as the NL MVP.

There are more PCA cards I’d be interested in, but these markets are moving quickly and therefore are a bit hard to value confidently. This post only considers cards where I felt reasonably comfortable estimating market values for raw cards, PSA 10s, and PSA 9s. I’d also recommend parallels of the cards on this list, as well as Topps Chrome Black Autos and Topps Chrome Logofractor Autos.

Estimates based on market values as of 8/31/2026 at 12:00 PST. Grading costs set at a minimum of $90, reflecting the cost of PSA Regular service plus round-trip shipping.

Pete Crow-Armstrong Cards To Grade Now

Analysis based on Expected Value (EV). Read the full EV tutorial here.

Expected Value = PSA 10 Value x Gem Rate + PSA 9 Value x (100% - Gem Rate) - Grading Costs - Selling Fees

1. 2020 Bowman Chrome Refractor #BD27

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $150
PSA 10 Value | $650
PSA 9 Value | $160
Gem Rate | 71.2%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $355.23
Expected Profit | $205.23
Expected ROI | 136.82%

Notes:

I think this is a great card to target on this list for a few reasons. The math is obviously very strong with an Expected ROI over 100%, but also this is an abundant card with a high Gem Rate (remember our target ROI is just 25%). That means you should have options to find clean copies to grade, and maybe even a handful. I’d be willing to pay around $200 for a copy that I’m confident is gemable.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

2. 2024 Topps Chrome Rookie Auto #RAPC

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $650
PSA 10 Value | $2,000
PSA 9 Value | $765
Gem Rate | 49.9%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular (with 49.9% chance of upcharge)
Expected Value | $1,107.94
Expected Profit | $457.94
Expected ROI | 70.45%

Notes:

This is the only card on this list that we have a history of grading, and in total we’ve submitted 8 copies with 5 grading as PSA 10s. We’re hoping to buy a few more before the season ends at prices around $800 or lower.

Unfortunately, these are not super easy to find ungraded now, since lots were graded last season. The best bet is probably to find them on auction.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

3. 2021 Bowman Chrome Mega Box Auto #BMAPC

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $325
PSA 10 Value | $1,500
PSA 9 Value | $325
Gem Rate | 59.7%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $825.60
Expected Profit | $500.60
Expected ROI | 154.03%

Notes:

Note that the PSA 9 value is an estimate based on raw pricing. Luckily there have been a handful of raw sales and PSA 10 sales recently, and these are the numbers we care most about.

This is another case where the math is strong and the Gem Rate is reasonably high (are you noticing a theme here?). Again, we’d pay well over average raw market value for a gemable copy, probably somewhere north of $500.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

4. 2020 Bowman Chrome Sapphire #BD27

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $175
PSA 10 Value | $850
PSA 9 Value | $145
Gem Rate | 74.6%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $497.27
Expected Profit | $322.27
Expected ROI | 184.16%

Notes:

I admit, most of these cards are tricky to value. Recent raw sales on this card are around $125, but there is an auction with 6 days remaining currently at $150. Given the way the market is rising, I decided to estimate the value at $175.

With all that said, I’ll keep it simple. With the PSA 10 value currently around $850 and Gem Rates above 70%, I’d easily pay $200+ for a raw copy in gemable condition. We’ll have more clarity on the exact market values in the coming weeks.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

5. 2024 Topps Home Field Advantage #HFA15

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $325
PSA 10 Value | $1,700
PSA 9 Value | $500
PSA 8 Value | $280*
Gem Rate | 19.9%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $533.36
Expected Profit | $208.36
Expected ROI | 64.11%

Notes:

The challenge here is finding a gemable raw card, as you might have guessed based on the sub-20% Gem Rate. But if you can find one, this is a pretty solid, high-upside choice for grading with PSA 10s worth about $1,700.

*Expected Value includes 20% chance of PSA 8 due to low Gem Rate/elevated probability of sub-PSA 9 grades.

For Sale Now (eBay Affiliate Link)

George Lombard Jr. is one of the hottest names right now in cards, and understandably so given that he’s a former top prospect who’s now the starting shortstop of the New York Yankees (I also think he gets a bit of extra love for finally replacing Anthony Volpe…).

Usually strong grading math follows an increase in demand for a player, and Lombard is no exception. And as you’ll see if you look at the listings of any of these cards on eBay, there’s lots of supply available. This is a great combination if you’re trying to make money grading a player — you have lots of options to find gemable cards, and strong margins to make if you pick correctly.

Most of the products are 2024 Bowman Chrome Autos, which is a product we’ve graded a lot (and done well on). In general, the main things to look for are front centering and surface scratches.

Market estimates based on eBay sold listings as of 8/27/2026. Minimum grading cost set at $90, reflecting the cost of PSA’s Regular service plus round trip shipping.

George Lombard Jr. Cards To Grade Now

Analysis based on Expected Value (EV). Read the full EV tutorial here.

Expected Value = PSA 10 Value x Gem Rate + PSA 9 Value x (100% - Gem Rate) - Grading Costs - Selling Fees

2024 Bowman Chrome Prospect Auto

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $340
PSA 10 Value | $900
PSA 9 Value | $400
Gem Rate | 59.6%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $520.86
Expected Profit | $180.86
Expected ROI | 53.19%

For Sale (eBay Affiliate Link)

2025 Bowman Mega Box Prospect Auto

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $210
PSA 10 Value | $550
PSA 9 Value | $265
Gem Rate | 63.7%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $300.72
Expected Profit | $90.72
Expected ROI | 43.20%

For Sale (eBay Affiliate Link)

2024 Bowman Paper Prospect Auto

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $250
PSA 10 Value | $675
PSA 9 Value | $350
Gem Rate | 61.1%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $389.98
Expected Profit | $139.98
Expected ROI | 55.99%

For Sale (eBay Affiliate Link)

2024 Bowman Chrome Prospect Refractor Auto /499

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $650
PSA 10 Value | $1,600
PSA 9 Value | $550
Gem Rate | 58.5%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $949.00
Expected Profit | $299.00
Expected ROI | 87.65%

For Sale (eBay Affiliate Link)

2024 Bowman Sapphire Chrome Prospect Auto

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $750
PSA 10 Value | $2,025
PSA 9 Value | $830
Gem Rate | 62.5%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $1,273.61
Expected Profit | $523.61
Expected ROI | 69.81%

For Sale (eBay Affiliate Link)

With LeBron James now a member of the Philadelphia 76ers (never thought I’d say that sentence), we’re taking a look at some of the top LeBron cards to grade for profit now.

For these, we’re taking a different approach than usual. Instead of buying his 2003 rookie cards, which are quite hard to grade at this point, we are looking at the 2025 Topps and Bowman Chrome products. And fortunately, there are quite a few that can generate high profits, if you can find PSA 10s.

This also should give you a good idea of which Topps Chrome products we’re targeting across all players, including Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Stephen Curry, and others.

I’ll give one quick warning before we start: watch out for the 2025 Topps Chrome Update products. They mostly look the same as the first Topps Chrome, but they are much newer, and therefore don’t have the population and sales data for us to be comfortable buying them yet.

Market estimates based on eBay sold listings as of 8/25/2026. Minimum grading cost set at $90, reflecting the cost of PSA’s Regular service plus round trip shipping.

Top LeBron James Cards To Grade Now

Analysis based on Expected Value (EV). Read the full EV tutorial here.

Expected Value = PSA 10 Value x Gem Rate + PSA 9 Value x (100% - Gem Rate) - Grading Costs - Selling Fees

2025 Topps Chrome

Notes: These Topps Chrome cards are tough grades. The centering is tricky to measure (which could be a whole post on its own) and the back corners and edges also tend to have problems. We gave each of these cards a 12.5% probability of grading as a PSA 8, reflecting this.

1. Topps Chrome LeBron James Refractor #127

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $25
PSA 10 Value | $620
PSA 9 Value | $85
PSA 8 Value | $30
Gem Rate | 37.0%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $150.30
Expected Profit | $125.30
Expected ROI | 501.18%

Available For Sale (eBay Affiliate Link)

Raw Cards For Sale | PSA 10 For Sale

Notes: Raw market for this card is around $25, but I’d realistically be willing to spend $60 or $70 (at least) to chase a well-centered/gemable copy.

2. Topps Chrome LeBron James Sapphire #127

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $130
PSA 10 Value | $680
PSA 9 Value | $180
PSA 8 Value | $70
Gem Rate | 39.3%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $227.55
Expected Profit | $97.55
Expected ROI | 75.04%

Available For Sale (eBay Affiliate Link)

All Cards For Sale

2025 Topps Chrome Cosmic

Notes: Topps Chrome Cosmic is one of our favorite products to buy right now. Just look out for back edge whitening when grading, which sometimes blends in with the starry card design on the back.

3. Topps Chrome Cosmic LeBron James Sun #2

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $235
PSA 10 Value | $850
PSA 9 Value | $275
Gem Rate | 53.6%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $420.16
Expected Profit | $185.16
Expected ROI | 78.79%

Available For Sale (eBay Affiliate Link)

All Cards For Sale

4. Topps Chrome Cosmic LeBron James Venus #2

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $450
PSA 10 Value | $2,250
PSA 9 Value | $440
Gem Rate | 48.6%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $1,053.34
Expected Profit | $603.34
Expected ROI | 134.07%

Available For Sale (eBay Affiliate Link)

All Cards For Sale

Other Topps/Bowman Chrome Parallels

5. Bowman Chrome LeBron James Spotlights #BNB-7

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $700
PSA 10 Value | $3,600
PSA 9 Value | $800
PSA 8 Value | $600*
Gem Rate | 20.0%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $1,034.10
Expected Profit | $334.10
Expected ROI | 47.73%

Available For Sale (eBay Affiliate Link)

All Cards For Sale

Notes: I don’t love buying cards with Gem Rates below 30%, but it’s something we’ve been doing more of recently. Just know that this card is a bit more high risk, high reward than the other cards on this list.

*20% PSA 8 probability was included in the Expected Value.

6. Topps Chrome Cosmic LeBron James Glass Canvas #GC-1

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $800
PSA 10 Value | $2,650
PSA 9 Value | $750
Gem Rate | 54.0%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $1,457.28
Expected Profit | $657.28
Expected ROI | 82.16%

Available For Sale (eBay Affiliate Link)

All Cards For Sale

Notes: We’re buying lots of Glass Canvas cards recently. These generally have strong grading math, just watch out for the centering (the top/bottom centering in particular is often off).

7. Topps Chrome LeBron James Rock Stars #RS-3

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $325
PSA 10 Value | $740
PSA 9 Value | $335
Gem Rate | 75.0%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $468.91
Expected Profit | $143.91
Expected ROI | 44.28%

Available For Sale (eBay Affiliate Link)

All Cards For Sale

Notes: Don’t be scared off by the unusual shape of the card. This is a product we’re buying a good bit of, and seems to have good quality control and high Gem Rates all around.

Jacob Misiorowski has settled in as one of the legit rising superstars in baseball, and also a very profitable player to buy, grade, and sell. His 104 MPH fastball makes him something like a modern day Nolan Ryan, and it’s been a lot of fun to throw on his highlight reels after getting a couple of his cards.

My favorite cards to buy for younger baseball players tend to be their Bowman Chrome First cards, as they tend to be worth the most and have good grading math. The challenge here with Misiorowski is that his Bowman First cards are from 2022, meaning that there is somewhat limited supply available on the market right now compared to other rising stars like George Lombard or Konnor Griffin, who have their first cards in 2025 and 2024, respectively.

Still, we will take a look at some of the most profitable Misiorowski cards to buy now. Right now we have approximately 5% of our inventory invested in Miz, which is our 3rd highest behind Victor Wembanyama and Shohei Ohtani, so the opportunity is there.

Here are some quick notes before we get started:

• Market values are based on recent eBay sales as of 8/19/2026.

• Minimum grading cost set at $90, reflecting the cost of PSA’s Regular service plus round trip shipping.

• Each card (excluding the Auto Refractor card) was given a 15% probability of grading as a PSA 8, in line with their average PSA 8 rates. This is included in the Expected Value math presented below.

Top Jacob Misiorowski Cards To Grade Now

Analysis based on Expected Value (EV). Read the full EV tutorial here.

Expected Value = PSA 10 Value x Gem Rate + PSA 9 Value x (100% - Gem Rate) - Grading Costs - Selling Fees

2024 Bowman Chrome Sapphire #BDC132

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $185
PSA 10 Value | $800
PSA 9 Value | $280
PSA 8 Value | $180
Gem Rate | 53.8%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $386.63
Expected Profit | $201.63
Expected ROI | 108.99%

Available For Sale (eBay Affiliate Link)

Raw Cards For Sale | PSA 10s For Sale

Notes:

Out of all the cards in this post, this is my favorite to buy. Assuming all else equal, I prefer higher Gem Rate cards, and this one is the highest of the bunch at over 50%. Plus the raw cost is pretty reasonable at around $200. Anytime I can get these even as high as about $230 or $240, I don’t hesitate.

2022 Bowman Chrome Draft Refractor #BDC132

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $85
PSA 10 Value | $885
PSA 9 Value | $160
PSA 8 Value | $80
Gem Rate | 28.6%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $220.75
Expected Profit | $135.75
Expected ROI | 159.71%

Available For Sale (eBay Affiliate Link)

Raw Cards For Sale | PSA 10s For Sale

Notes:

Truthfully, this is not a card I buy often, as it’s a bit below our minimum value threshold (our minimum value threshold for raw cards on eBay is usually set between $100 and $130). But with that said the math on this card is great with an Expected Profit of $135 with a raw value of just around $80.

2022 Bowman Chrome Draft Pick Auto #CDAJMI

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $875
PSA 10 Value | $2,800
PSA 9 Value | $850
PSA 8 Value | $600
Gem Rate | 39.5%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $1,294.51
Expected Profit | $419.51
Expected ROI | 47.94%

Available For Sale (eBay Affiliate Link)

Raw Cards For Sale | PSA 10s For Sale

Notes:

This is one we’ve bought a lot of, and the math was actually better about a month ago, but there was a recent Fixed Price PSA 10 sale for closer to $4,000, so maybe the PSA 10 market value is rising again. We aim to be conservative on market values in this post, and the other recent sales were more in the $2,400 to $2,800 range.

This card is a tough grade. Pay careful attention to the front surface, as it’s prone to print lines, scratches, and other defects. We are willing to submit these with imperfect surfaces, as long as the rest of the card is clean.

2022 Bowman Chrome Auto Refractor #CDAJMI

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $1,050
PSA 10 Value | $4,500
PSA 9 Value | $1,350
Gem Rate | 48.8%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $2,376.96
Expected Profit | $1,326.96
Expected ROI | 126.38%

Available For Sale (eBay Affiliate Link)

Raw Cards For Sale | PSA 10s For Sale

Notes:

We haven’t bought one of these yet (they’re hard to find), so I’ll keep my notes short and sweet. This is one of the highest Gem Rate cards on the list and the Expected Profit is very strong. It’s one I will target aggressively if I see a clean copy on the market.

One Piece has been hot for a couple of months now and it’s something that we’ve recently started buying heavily. While I wouldn’t consider myself an expert in One Piece by any means, the Expected Value method can be applied to any type of card, and OP is no exception.

Before we get started, here’s a couple things you should know:

• The average Gem Rates on these cards are very high (often 90% or more), which you’ll see presented for each card below. However for the purposes of calculating the profitability of each card, the Gem Rate is capped at 75%.

• As you might guess, quality control on these cards is excellent and they are generally well centered and sharp. The biggest thing to watch for is whitening on the back surface and edges.

• We tried to present highly abundant cards, worth about $300 or less ungraded. The goal is that these cards are both readily available on the market and reasonably priced for someone who is new to OP.

• Market prices are estimated based on the most recent eBay sales as of 8/17/2026.

• Minimum grading cost set at $90, reflecting the cost of PSA’s Regular service plus round trip shipping.

Top One Piece Cards To Grade Now

Analysis based on Expected Value (EV). Read the full EV tutorial here.

Expected Value = PSA 10 Value x Gem Rate + PSA 9 Value x (100% - Gem Rate) - Grading Costs - Selling Fees

2024 Monkey D. Luffy Treasure Rare #109

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $230
PSA 10 Value | $860
PSA 9 Value | $245
Gem Rate | 83.7%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $527.97
Expected Profit | $297.97
Expected ROI | 129.55%

Available For Sale (eBay Affiliate Link)

Raw Cards For Sale | PSA 10 For Sale

2023 Tony Tony Chopper Gift Collection #106

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $225
PSA 10 Value | $650
PSA 9 Value | $225
Gem Rate | 88.7%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $385.78
Expected Profit | $135.78
Expected ROI | 54.31%

Available For Sale (eBay Affiliate Link)

Raw Cards For Sale | PSA 10 For Sale

2026 Roronoa Zoro Treasure Rare #037

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $270
PSA 10 Value | $670
PSA 9 Value | $225
Gem Rate | 93.4%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $398.91
Expected Profit | $128.91
Expected ROI | 47.74%

Available For Sale (eBay Affiliate Link)

Raw Cards For Sale | PSA 10 For Sale

2023 Monkey D. Luffy Alternate Art #119

Values & Gem Rate

Raw Value | $235
PSA 10 Value | $600
PSA 9 Value | $210
Gem Rate | 85.3%

Profitability

PSA Submission Tier | Regular
Expected Value | $349.69
Expected Profit | $114.69
Expected ROI | 48.80%

Available For Sale (eBay Affiliate Link)

Raw Cards For Sale | PSA 10 For Sale

Since my last post, you guys probably are aware that PSA paused all Value level grading services, a change that I was worried would have a large impact on our business. Interestingly, that’s turned out not to be the case, as we have an average purchase price on raw cards of around $350. As a result, not much changed except that we completely stopped buying cards in the $75 to $150 price range (with occasional exceptions).

In terms of the market conditions themselves, we’ve seen a big slowdown in Pokémon (which may or may not be related to PSA’s pause), while One Piece and sports cards have surged.

Speaking of One Piece, we’ve actually started buying One Piece cards for the first time ever, and have invested about $5k into these cards. You’ll hear more about this in future posts. We also are planning to look into buying Riftbound cards, as well as Topps Chrome Disney and other non sport product. In the past we’ve limited ourselves to sports rookie cards, but the goal now is to expand into every profitable category we can reach.

Finally, I’ve made some slight modifications to our Expected Value model to increase accuracy. The long story short is that we found our grading results are significantly better than the average Gem Rates, but also that about 20% of the cards we buy, we decide not to submit to PSA. So I’ve updated our model to reflect these realities. For the purpose of this blog, I will continue presenting card profitability data very similarly to how I did before, but I do plan to explain the concepts above in more detail.

With that said, welcome back everyone.

With that said, Shohei is a cultural icon and an all-time great, so we don’t want to stop buying Ohtani cards altogether. Instead, we will increase our target return on investment for his cards.

Note that all this is based on an Expected Value approach. You can find the formula below, but you can also read the Complete Guide to Expected Value here.

Expected Value = PSA 10 Value x Gem Rate + PSA 9 Value x (100% - Gem Rate) - Grading Costs - Selling Fees

Looking At a Concrete Example

2018 Shohei Ohtani Topps Chrome #HMT1

This is a good example card, because it’s one we are actively buying using this methodology. Let’s start by calculating the Expected Value of the card.

PSA 10 Value | $785
PSA 9 Value | $280
Gem Rate | 62.5%
Expected Value | $453.67

Our general target ROI is 25%, which is the threshold we use for cards where we don’t have elevated exposure. The maximum price we can pay is EV / (1 + Target ROI). If we buy at that price, we expect to hit our target return on average.

Target ROI | 25.0%
Max Bid | $362.94

Given our current Ohtani exposure, we’ve raised our target ROI specifically for his cards to 35%. Here’s how that changes our maximum buy price.

Target ROI | 35.0%
Max Bid | $336.05

On the surface, a $27 difference in the maximum bid doesn’t look like much. But this can have a real impact. While we’ve bought a few of these cards lately, there’s also been multiple Ohtani cards that we’ve narrowly missed out on buying because of this adjustment. With the adjusted threshold, we only buy this card when we find a very solid deal.

You can apply the same logic to any card where your exposure is running high, but you can use any ROI target you like. If you had heavy Konnor Griffin inventory heading into his debut, you might push your target ROI to 45% given the high risk of investing into an unproven prospect.

The specific number matters less than the principle: when concentration goes up, your required return should go up with it. It’s a simple way to let the math do the risk management for you without having to set hard limits on what you’ll buy.

What A Slant Looks Like

The 2025 Mega Evolution Charizard X ex #125 is about as clear an example of a slanted card as you’ll find. The borders shift noticeably as you move along the card, and in my opinion the centering at the worst point was well outside of PSA’s 55/45 guideline for front centering. It still came back as a PSA 10.

In general, I don’t recommend submitting cards with slants this extreme, but I do think this card serves as a good example to show both what a slant is, and that PSA is willing to give these cards PSA 10s.

When To Submit Slanted Cards

The Pikachu Mega Evolution #277 is a better example to walk through the evaluation process. This one has a more subtle slant. Below, I’ve zoomed in on just the very top and very bottom part of the border. At the top, the left/right centering is nearly perfect, but at the bottom, the left border is noticeably wider than the right border.

Top Part of Border:

Bottom Part of Border:

Our approach is simple. We ignore the favorable end of the slant and measure from the worst point, which in this case is the bottom. In the end, we measured the left/right centering from the marks in the image above at 57/43.

Since that’s outside of PSA’s 55/45 guideline, we decided not to submit it. But if that same worst-case measurement had come in at 55/45 or better, we would have submitted it despite the slant.

For a review on how to measure a card’s centering, read our Complete Guide to PSA Grading.

The core issue is that if someone is an experienced grader, there’s a good chance they already know which of their cards can gem. That means the raw cards they’re selling are probably the ones that can’t. You’re better off avoiding these kinds of sellers altogether.

Who to Avoid

Large sellers, shops, and consigners rarely sell cards that are PSA 10 candidates.

If someone has thousands of cards listed, it’s a pretty safe assumption that they know what they’re doing (unless everything looks like it was recently pulled from a pack). A shop is even worse since you have no idea how the card was handled before it was listed on eBay. Plus you don’t know anything about why the original owner decided to sell to the shop rather than grading themselves.

Consigners are another category I avoid. In general, we don’t get good cards from consigners. The problem is that experienced sellers with high volumes of inventory use consigners more than the average collector, and therefore most of the cards are not PSA 10 candidates, even if they look like they are in the listing.

How to Evaluate a Seller’s Profile

Another important thing to search for on an eBay seller’s profile is their graded card history. PSA certification numbers are sequential, so if you see a seller with several high cert numbers, that tells you they’ve submitted to PSA recently. If a seller has certs in the 100000000 to 150000000 range, there’s a decent chance they’re actively grading and you want to avoid buying.

What you want to see is either no graded cards at all, or older cert numbers that suggest they haven’t graded in a while.

I also look at the overall shape of their inventory. Does their store have a lot of random 2025 cards across different sets and sports? That’s a good sign they’re just opening packs and selling. A small account with a mix of recent product and no graded cards is about as good as it gets.

Another good shortcut is to look for sellers with some feedback but not thousands of reviews. Fewer reviews usually means the seller is less serious, which is what you want. An unprofessional or random username and no profile picture are also good signs. It sounds counterintuitive, but those tend to be the people who are casual sellers, and therefore the people you want to buy from.

Takeaways

I’ll note that this is not a perfect system. There are plenty of PSA 10 worthy cards being sold from big accounts, and there are small accounts that are run by people who grade. But this is a strong prescreening method and needs to be a part of the evaluation process for any serious card grader.

The Expected Value math on this one has been good enough to keep us coming back, and I’ve covered the profitability calculations in detail in previous posts.

What I haven’t talked about much is the physical condition of these cards, and honestly, it’s been on my mind since we started getting them. We submitted 9 so far to PSA and haven’t gotten any results back yet, but we’ll learn a lot when we do.

Common Defects: Edges Are Consistently Inconsistent

These cards consistently have rough edges. The level of defect can range anywhere from rough factory cuts to more noticeable chipping.

Here’s an example of a rough factory cut. This is common on sports cards and doesn’t kill a card’s chance of grading as a 10. Still, I’d obviously prefer to submit cards with perfect edges.

I’m generally more concerned when I see chunks out of the edges. Not just roughness, but visible material missing. We’ve decided not to buy a lot of copies because of this, but even the ones we submitted aren’t perfect.

Why Is the Gem Rate So High?

Here’s what makes this card interesting as a grading case study. Despite all of the above, the listed gem rate on this card is strong at 61.0%. That’s surprising given what we’re seeing on the edges.

My best guess is that PSA is lenient on the edge issues specific to this card. This happens. PSA’s grading isn’t always consistent across product lines, and there are cases where a defect that kills one card gets overlooked on another. Case in point would be the 2024 Donruss Downtown Football cards, which had a set-wide Gem Rate of 22.2% due to very similar edge defects.

In general, when a card has a weird defect I will look on eBay for recent PSA 10 sales, and analyze what those cards look like. And based on what I saw, many copies of these with imperfect edges are gemming. Which again, leaves us with the takeaway that the ones we’ve submitted have a chance at getting PSA 10s, but we’re having a hard time estimating exactly what that chance is.

In other words, our next set of results will tell us a lot about this card.

Do you have experience grading 2023 All Aces cards? If so, please feel free to comment and give your thoughts.

Update:

We’ve now had nine 2023 Shohei Ohtani All Aces cards graded with PSA, all of which had some level of edge issues. In total, we received 6 PSA 10s and 3 PSA 9s. In other words, it’s safe to say that these can grade as 10s even with some of the defects shown above.

There’s a sweet spot when buying cards to grade. It comes after a card has been on the market long enough to have both Gem Rate data and sales data for PSA 10s and PSA 9s, but before most of the clean copies have already been graded. Before that sweet spot, you don’t have enough information to make smart buying decisions. After it, there are gradually fewer and fewer raw cards available on the market.

For example, we’ve been buying lots of 2023 Prizm Victor Wembanyama rookie cards lately, and every copy we’ve bought looked clean in the listing pictures. And yet, we decided not to grade quite a few of these.

This makes a lot of sense because the Wembanyama Prizm rookie cards have been profitable to grade since it released. People have been buying and grading clean copies consistently for two-plus years now. The result is that the best cards have already been submitted, and the raw cards that are still ungraded tend to have issues.

The opposite is also true, and it’s something we’ve been taking advantage of lately. If a card has only recently become profitable to grade, there’s a much better chance that clean copies are still out there.

The 2018 Topps Chrome Shohei Ohtani #150 is the clearest example I can point to right now. A year ago, a PSA 10 of this card was worth around $200. Today it’s worth over $1,000. Because the card wasn’t a smart grading candidate until relatively recently, a lot of collectors who pulled clean copies just put them in a case and forgot about them for years. Those copies are now hitting the market as raw prices rise. We’ve been grading these well, and I think the abundance of clean raw supply is a big part of the reason why.

A similar dynamic applies to older cards from eras when PSA grading was less common. The 2011 Topps Update Mike Trout rookie is a good example. Grading wasn’t nearly as popular in 2011 and the years that followed, so a lot of high-quality copies were stored rather than submitted. We get about 60% PSA 10s on these, in spite of it being a 15-year-old paper card, and I suspect it’s for the same reason. Because grading wasn’t as profitable when these cards were pulled, more clean raw cards are available now.

The idea is that where a card lands in the grading cycle is a variable worth considering. For example, if I see a Wembanyama card that we previously would have assumed had a 60% chance of grading as a PSA 10, I might now assume it’s closer to 45%. And if a player breaks out and becomes a grading candidate (like Cal Raleigh last year), even if the card is a few years old, I’d expect clean raw copies to grade closer to the average Gem Rates.

We purchased a $300 Victor Wembanyama Phoenix White Lazer RC from a seller on eBay. Shortly after the purchase, the seller started messaging us with updates. There was an issue at the post office, then a problem printing the label. He ended up shipping us the card about two weeks late. He felt bad enough about the delays that he offered to throw in a free PSA graded card as an apology, which he said he would ship separately.

When a package arrived with the tracking number associated with our order, it contained a CJ Stroud Prizmatic PSA 10, worth about $60 and no Wembanyama card.

Here’s the problem. On eBay, you have a 3-day window from confirmed delivery to open a return request. If you miss that window, you lose buyer protection on the order. The seller told us to just wait a few more days for the Wembanyama to arrive. If we had done that, we would have been outside the return window and had no recourse through eBay.

Two weeks later, the Wembanyama card still hasn’t arrived, leading me to believe that this was intentional, although I can’t be 100% certain.

Intentional or not, we have to act in a way that keeps us safe from any scams or issues. This highlights the importance of knowing the rules of your buying and selling platforms. Had we not known that the 3-day return window had started when the Stroud card was delivered, we probably never would have gotten a refund.

So this is just a reminder to everyone. eBay is a pretty safe place to buy and sell but be aware that things do happen and to stay cautious.

Last year during Raleigh’s breakout campaign, we bought his cards pretty aggressively. As his market rose, the Expected Value of grading kept improving, and we found ourselves winning nearly every auction we bid on.

There was also a ton of gradable supply hitting the market. People were taking profit on ungraded copies and graders had never cherry-picked the cleanest copies, since grading them hadn't been profitable before last season. As a result, the supply flooding eBay was mostly in good condition.

In total, we bought and sold 32 Raleigh cards across 2025 and 2026, which is a lot of exposure to one player. The first 17 sold in 2025, and here’s how those looked:

Purchase Price | $4,110
Grading Cost | $552
Profit After Fees | $2,537
ROI | 61.7%

Out of these 17 cards, we submitted 11 to PSA and sold 6 raw. Deciding not to submit 6 out of 17 is unusually high for us, but we more than made up for it in grading: 9 of the 11 submitted cards came back as PSA 10s.

This brings us to probably the most important concept in our business: buying into hype windows.

When a player is in the middle of a breakout, raw supply tends to flood the market, giving you cards to buy and grade, while PSA 10 values rise faster than raw values. That combination creates a window where grading is unusually profitable. Raleigh was one of our biggest targets in the second half of 2025, and the numbers reflect that.

The remaining 15 cards were bought between late 2025 and early 2026. All 15 were sold in 2026 due to the typical 3-month lag between submission and sale.

As you probably know, Raleigh’s market has fallen sharply on the back of a slow start to the season. The results on these 15 cards reflect that, as they generated just $460 of profit on $5,570 of sales. That's well below our usual targets, but staying profitable in a sharply falling market is a good result.

This reflects the core logic of buying with strong Expected Value: in a rising or steady market you make strong profits, while your downside in a falling market is close to breakeven.