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the Rare Rainbow Sylveon VMAX from Evolving Skies is one to leave raw for the moment. Raw copies trade around $54.26 while PSA 10s sell for about $131.00, a -9% Return on Grading. Worth rechecking if the raw price drops or PSA 10 demand spikes.
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)
Not worth grading at any odds
Even a guaranteed PSA 10 ($131.00) wouldn't cover your $144.26 cost (raw + grading + shipping).
A clean raw copy is worth more to you than a slabbed one here. Sell it as is, or keep it for the collection.
Among the 122 cards in Evolving Skies with PSA 10 sale data, Sylveon VMAX ranks 48th for Return on Grading and 35th by PSA 10 price. Of the 22 Rare Rainbow cards with PSA 10 sales, it is 12th for Return on Grading. The median PSA 10 in this set sells for $78.59. 7 of the 122 clear a 100% Return on Grading.
