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the Illustration Rare Torkoal from Twilight Masquerade is one to leave raw for the moment. At $6.54 raw against $102.00 for a PSA 10, that works out to 6% ROG. Hold it raw and watch for the graded price to move.
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 copy you'd bet on gemming almost every time for this to pay off.
You'd be risking $77.54 to make $5.46, so the 10 has to be close to certain before this is worth doing.
Among the 92 cards in Twilight Masquerade with PSA 10 sale data, Torkoal ranks 15th for Return on Grading and 19th by PSA 10 price. Of the 21 Illustration Rare cards with PSA 10 sales, it is 6th for Return on Grading. The median PSA 10 in this set sells for $57.14. 4 of the 92 clear a 100% Return on Grading.
