Best Smeargle Cards to Grade
The Smeargle cards worth grading, ranked by expected profit per submission — every grade outcome weighted by how often the card actually receives it — after current grading fees. The PSA 10 best case is shown on every row but does not decide the order. Top pick: Smeargle (Call of Legends) at an expected +$2,096.
Ranked by expected profit 6
| # | Card | Raw | PSA 9 | PSA 10 | Cost | Best case | Gem rate | Expected | Sample |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Expected +$2,096 per submission: 18.8% of 144 graded copies came back PSA 10 ($12,355), and a PSA 9 ($143) still clears the $1,155 you have in it. Confidence high on that sample. | $12 | $143 | $12,355 | $1,143 | +$11,200 | 18.8% | +$2,096 | 144 high |
| 2 | Expected +$1,548 per submission: 6.8% of 118 graded copies came back PSA 10 ($24,750), and only a PSA 10 covers the $1,276 you have in it — a 9 loses money. Confidence high on that sample. | $9 | $61 | $24,750 | $1,267 | +$23,475 | 6.8% | +$1,548 | 118 high |
| 3 | Expected +$71 per submission: 40.2% of 87 graded copies came back PSA 10 ($374), and only a PSA 10 covers the $98 you have in it — a 9 loses money. Confidence medium on that sample. | $14 | $31 | $374 | $84 | +$277 | 40.2% | +$71 | 87 medium |
| 4 | Expected +$40 per submission: 0.4% of 1,004 graded copies came back PSA 10 ($1,176), and a PSA 9 ($650) still clears the $167 you have in it. Confidence high on that sample. | $55 | $650 | $1,176 | $112 | +$1,009 | 0.4% | +$40 | 1,004 high |
| 5 | Expected loss −$29 per submission: 15.5% of 84 graded copies came back PSA 10 ($255), and only a PSA 10 covers the $93 you have in it — a 9 loses money. Confidence medium on that sample. | $10 | $40 | $255 | $83 | +$162 | 15.5% | −$29 | 84 medium |
| 6 | Expected loss −$41 per submission: 7.7% of 13 graded copies came back PSA 10 ($339), and only a PSA 10 covers the $99 you have in it — a 9 loses money. Confidence low on that sample. | $16 | $77 | $339 | $83 | +$240 | 7.7% | −$41 | 13 low |
Expected = every grade outcome weighted by its share of the card's graded population, minus the raw price and the grading cost (PSA tier fee for the graded value plus ~$20 round-trip shipping, fees as of 2026-09-26). Best case is the PSA 10 leg alone. Gem rates come from a self-selected population — collectors grade their cleanest copies — so read them as an upper bound. Raw is a blended market price, not a sale of your copy. Full method and filters on the grading index.
How to read the Smeargle ranking
Every Smeargle card listed here clears one bar: its PSA 10 price beats its raw price by more than the cost of grading it. 6 Smeargle printings pass. 6 of them (100%) have a gem-rate sample of at least ten graded copies in the population reports, and 4 of those keep a positive expected value once every grade outcome is weighted by how often the card actually receives it.
The order is expected profit, not the PSA 10 best case, which rewards the widest raw-to-gem gap whether the card gems one time in two or one in fifty. Here the top row, the Smeargle from Call of Legends, gems 18.8% of the time across 144 graded copies: +$2,096 is what a long run of submissions would average, $11,200 is what one lucky copy returns.
The median gem rate across the sampled Smeargle cards is 15.5%. Roughly one submitted copy in 6 came back PSA 10, and most rows here need that PSA 10 to cover raw price plus fee, so the gem rate decides whether a submission pays. Of the 6 ranked cards, 2 still cover raw price plus fee at PSA 9, 4 need a 10 to break even and 2 lose money on expectation. 3 rest on a hundred or more graded copies.
Before you submit a Smeargle card
Grading pays on condition. The four things every grader scores — centering, corners, edges and surface — can be checked at home before paying a fee, and a copy that is visibly off-centre or has a whitened corner will not gem whatever the population says. Those gem rates come from a self-selected population of clean copies, so a random copy does worse.
The cost column assumes a PSA submission at the tier covering the card's PSA 10 value, fees as of 2026-09-26, and raw is CardTrack's blended near-mint price, not a sale of your copy: pay more, or hold a lighter copy, and the break-even moves against you. Test a card with your own numbers in the ROI calculator, see the printings that fail the bar on the Smeargle card list, or see how gem-mint premiums run across the whole catalogue on the PSA premium index.