Best Volcanion Cards to Grade
The Volcanion 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: Volcanion (XY Black Star Promos) at an expected +$171.
Ranked by expected profit 4
| # | Card | Raw | PSA 9 | PSA 10 | Cost | Best case | Gem rate | Expected | Sample |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Expected +$171 per submission: 40.2% of 976 graded copies came back PSA 10 ($600), and only a PSA 10 covers the $100 you have in it — a 9 loses money. Confidence high on that sample. | $14 | $53 | $600 | $86 | +$501 | 40.2% | +$171 | 976 high |
| 2 | Expected +$125 per submission: 27.9% of 1,734 graded copies came back PSA 10 ($699), and only a PSA 10 covers the $124 you have in it — a 9 loses money. Confidence high on that sample. | $37 | $92 | $699 | $87 | +$575 | 27.9% | +$125 | 1,734 high |
| 3 | Expected +$73 per submission: 29.9% of 1,028 graded copies came back PSA 10 ($463), and only a PSA 10 covers the $94 you have in it — a 9 loses money. Confidence high on that sample. | $9 | $45 | $463 | $85 | +$369 | 29.9% | +$73 | 1,028 high |
| 4 | Expected loss −$17 per submission: 34.9% of 4,250 graded copies came back PSA 10 ($158), and only a PSA 10 covers the $89 you have in it — a 9 loses money. Confidence high on that sample. | $7 | $24 | $158 | $82 | +$70 | 34.9% | −$17 | 4,250 high |
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 Volcanion ranking
Every Volcanion card listed here clears one bar: its PSA 10 price beats its raw price by more than the cost of grading it. 4 Volcanion printings pass. 4 of them (100%) have a gem-rate sample of at least ten graded copies in the population reports, and 3 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 Volcanion from XY Black Star Promos, gems 40.2% of the time across 976 graded copies: +$171 is what a long run of submissions would average, $501 is what one lucky copy returns.
The median gem rate across the sampled Volcanion cards is 34.9%. Roughly one submitted copy in 3 came back PSA 10, and no row here covers raw price plus fee at PSA 9, so the gem rate decides whether a submission pays. Of the 4 ranked cards, 4 need a 10 to break even and 1 loses money on expectation. 4 rest on a hundred or more graded copies.
Before you submit a Volcanion 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 Volcanion card list, or see how gem-mint premiums run across the whole catalogue on the PSA premium index.