Market Update #3: Profitable Cards To Grade Now
Six profitable Pokémon targets for PSA grading, a $4,000+ Lamine Yamal sale, and everything we're buying right now.
A lot has happened over the past couple of weeks, including one of the most profitable sales in BCG history. We'll get into that, but we've also been busy on the buying side, and Pokémon in particular is as hot as we've seen it in a while. Here's the full update.
Cards We’ve Been Buying
Ascended Heroes: Both the Japanese and English versions. The challenge with the English cards is that despite high Gem Rates, the vast majority are way off center. That said, the Expected Value on both sets is strong right now.
Pokémon is King: Last week, we bought more Pokémon than sports for the first time in a few months. Outside of the recent Ascended Heroes cards, Japanese Pokémon and 2025 Scarlet & Violet cards are quite profitable right now. You’ll see more of these targets later in this post.
Victor Wembanyama: We’ve been buying Wemby for months and that hasn’t changed. We’ll be rooting hard for the Spurs this playoffs.
Phoenix Color Blast: We’re grabbing lots of these. The math isn’t outstanding, but the Expected ROI is within our target range. Targets so far include Emeka Egbuka, Jaxson Dart, and Ashton Jeanty.
Mike Trout: Trout is rising like we talked about in last week’s post. We’re snagging his Topps Update rookie cards whenever we can find them in gradable condition for under $400.
BCG Auctions Tracker
The BCG Auctions Tracker helps you find auctions ending soon, for all of the most profitable cards to grade on the market. We’ve recently added a lot of Pokémon to the eBay auctions tracker, including Psyduck and Lucario cards. Try it out at the link below!
Note that we receive commissions for completed purchases from links in this post, at no cost to you.
Interesting Sales & PSA Offers
1998 Bowman Roy Halladay Blue Auto: Declined a $490 offer from PSA, only to sell months later for $400 ($348 payout). That one stings.
2011 Topps Red Helmet Bryce Harper: Declined a $3,000 offer a few months ago. There’s still a chance we sell it for more, our BIN is currently at $3,150. If anyone is interested, you can find the card here.
2023 Topps Chrome Lamine Yamal Ultimate Stage Auto: The most recent PSA 10 / Auto 10 sale was over $4,000, and with Yamal trending up we were planning to list ours at $5,000. Then a season-ending hamstring injury threw that plan into doubt. Fortunately, PSA stepped in with a generous $4,400 offer, which we accepted. This is one of the most profitable cards we’ve ever sold.
Tyler Shough Downtown PSA 9: PSA offered $571 with no fees, which again was a very generous offer. Market value is around $550, which would have netted $484 after fees. Moral of the story, PSA is making aggressive offers for certain players. Keep an eye on this if you use PSA Vault.
Pushing the Envelope on Centering
PSA guidelines call for cards to be within 55/45 centering, but we’ve recently been submitting cards that are slightly outside that threshold if they’re otherwise clean.
So far, nearly every card we’ve submitted at 56/44 or 57/43 has graded as a 10. We’re going to keep pushing further. You’ll hear more about this in future posts.
PSA Turnaround Times
PSA appears to be slowing down again. Multiple recent submissions have spent a couple of weeks in Order Arrived before moving to Research & ID — something we haven’t seen in quite a while.
That said, this isn’t unusual. PSA turnaround times tend to slow when the market is hot and submission volumes rise.
Profitable Pokémon 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
*We may receive commission for any purchases completed from links in this post, at no cost to you. Thanks for supporting BCG Cards.
2026 Pokémon Ascended Heroes
1. 2026 Team Rocket’s Mewtwo ex #281
Values & Gem Rate
Raw Value | $480
PSA 10 Value | $1,400
PSA 9 Value | $550
Gem Rate | 75.1%
Profitability
PSA Submission Tier | Value Plus
Expected Value | $825.23*
Expected Profit | $345.23
Expected ROI | 71.9%
Available For Purchase (eBay)
2. 2026 Psyduck #226
Values & Gem Rate
Raw Value | $100
PSA 10 Value | $735
PSA 9 Value | $165
Gem Rate | 68.3%
Profitability
PSA Submission Tier | Value Plus
Expected Value | $348.61*
Expected Profit | $248.61
Expected ROI | 248.6%
Available For Purchase (eBay)
Notes:
These are the cards I missed in our previous Pokémon Ascended Heroes post. This is another great target with high profitability, but the main challenge is to find well-centered copies.
The Psyduck card in particular is pretty much as high an Expected Profit as we ever see in the market. I think it’s a safe bet to assume that the PSA graded values of this card will fall in the coming months, but these things don’t always happen the way you would think.
*One final note, we applied a 15% Market Adjustment to both of these cards. To put this in simple terms, if a PSA 10 is worth $1,000, we will treat it as an $850 card in our calculation. You can read about our framework for doing this here.
2025 Pokémon Black Bolt & White Flare
2025 Zekrom ex #172
Values & Gem Rate
Raw Value | $420
PSA 10 Value | $1,500
PSA 9 Value | $475
Gem Rate | 51.1%
Profitability
PSA Submission Tier | Value Plus
Expected Value | $823.52
Expected Profit | $403.52
Expected ROI | 96.1%
Available For Purchase (eBay)
2025 Reshiram ex #173
Values & Gem Rate
Raw Value | $380
PSA 10 Value | $1,225
PSA 9 Value | $385
Gem Rate | 60.0%
Profitability
PSA Submission Tier | Value Plus
Expected Value | $722.43
Expected Profit | $342.43
Expected ROI | 90.1%
Available For Purchase (eBay)
Notes: Each of these cards has risen rapidly over the past 3 months, which has led to Expected Profitability rising (this often goes hand in hand as you can read here). These aren’t quite as abundant as the Ascended Heroes cards, but they’re definitely out there. Again, pay close attention to centering on these.
Japanese Pokémon Cards
2023 Mew ex #205 (Japanese)
Values & Gem Rate
Raw Value | $215
PSA 10 Value | $710
PSA 9 Value | $230
Gem Rate | 82.2%
Profitability
PSA Submission Tier | Value Plus
Expected Value | $480.05
Expected Profit | $265.05
Expected ROI | 123.3%
Available For Purchase (eBay)
2023 Gengar Master Ball Reverse Holo #094
Values & Gem Rate
Raw Value | $415
PSA 10 Value | $1100
PSA 9 Value | $400**
Gem Rate | 84.3%
Profitability
PSA Submission Tier | Value Plus
Expected Value | $804.16
Expected Profit | $389.16
Expected ROI | 93.8%
Available For Purchase (eBay)
Notes: You won’t see a ton of either of these cards on the market, but the profitability is solid when you do. Note that these (and most Japanese Pokémon) tend to be well-centered and grade well. Additionally, Gengar in particular is one of our most bought Pokémon, and is one of the most important characters to stay up to date on if you want to buy Pokémon profitably.
**Note that there are no recent PSA 9 sales. The $400 figure is an estimate based on the PSA 10 value and raw value.