Worth Grading
the Illustration Rare Palafin from Obsidian Flames is a reasonable card to send to PSA. The gap between the $3.59 raw price and the $155.00 PSA 10 price gives a 66% Return on Grading. Best value if you send it alongside other cards to spread the shipping cost.
Most grading maths asks you to guess your odds of a PSA 10 first. This works backwards from the prices instead and tells you what those odds would have to be.
The number is different on every card. It's how confident you'd need to be that this copy gems before grading pays for itself, so 20% means roughly a 1 in 5 shot and 50% means a coin flip.
Grade it if you rate your copy better than that, leave it raw if you don't.
It assumes a 9 is the worst you'll get. Centering and edge whitening send plenty of modern cards back at 8 or lower, and that's not priced in here, so treat this as the floor of the bar rather than the whole of it. Selling fees aren't counted either.
(cost - PSA 9) ÷ (PSA 10 - PSA 9)
You need at least
a 6-in-10 shot (55%) at a PSA 10 for this to pay off.
A PSA 10 puts you $61.41 ahead. A PSA 9 still sells for $18.25, so a disappointing grade costs you $75.34 rather than everything you put in.
Among the 68 cards in Obsidian Flames with PSA 10 sale data, Palafin ranks 14th for Return on Grading and 15th by PSA 10 price. Of the 12 Illustration Rare cards with PSA 10 sales, it is 9th for Return on Grading. The median PSA 10 in this set sells for $49.38. 13 of the 68 clear a 100% Return on Grading.
