Grading Profit Optimizer
Pick a card. See what it's worth raw, what each grader pays, and net ROI after fees + shipping. The math is exposed so you can override your own judgment when your copy is unusually clean.
All cards Pokémon Base1 1Ed
Charizard (1st Edition Holographic)
refresh_ebay_optimizer_data.py.
Math below uses platform-tracked comps until the cache populates.
Grading economics
Three scenarios per graderEach column shows the deterministic net — the math if your card hits that exact grade. Includes raw cost, grading fee, return shipping, and eBay fee. The "Best outcome" badge marks the highest-net column. The hero's "Average expected" line above weights these by the actual grade-distribution probability; both are honest framings of the same data.
- Raw cost −$5,500
- Shipping −$5
- eBay fee (13.25% + $0.30) −$729
- Raw cost −$5,500
- PSA grading fee −$9,999
- Shipping to grader −$15
- eBay fee (13.25% + $0.30) −$10,733
- Raw cost −$5,500
- PSA grading fee −$9,999
- Shipping to grader −$15
- eBay fee (13.25% + $0.30) −$112,625
- Raw cost −$5,500
- Shipping −$5
- eBay fee (13.25% + $0.30) −$729
- Raw cost −$5,500
- BGS grading fee −$125
- Shipping to grader −$15
- eBay fee (13.25% + $0.30) −$1,259
- Raw cost −$5,500
- BGS grading fee −$125
- Shipping to grader −$15
- eBay fee (13.25% + $0.30) −$15,900
- Raw cost −$5,500
- Shipping −$5
- eBay fee (13.25% + $0.30) −$729
- Raw cost −$5,500
- CGC grading fee −$100
- Shipping to grader −$15
- eBay fee (13.25% + $0.30) −$1,166
- Raw cost −$5,500
- CGC grading fee −$100
- Shipping to grader −$15
- eBay fee (13.25% + $0.30) −$6,493
- Raw cost −$5,500
- Shipping −$5
- eBay fee (13.25% + $0.30) −$729
Price history
Recent sales
Recent eBay sales activate after the nightly refresh runs.
The refresh script (factory/scripts/refresh_ebay_optimizer_data.py) writes
to factory/data/ebay_optimizer_cache.json. Until that cache populates for
this card, no sales appear here — we don't show fabricated comps.
What's covered today
16 flagship cards across both games, hand-curated from public PSA POP Report and recent eBay sold listings as of 2026-05-04. Coverage expands meaningfully with our commercial pop-data partner integration — currently in active onboarding (Tuesday's GemRate meeting drives the next step).
How the math works
For each grader (PSA, CGC, BGS, SGC, TAG) we look at the public population report and compute the probability your raw card lands at each grade bucket: 10 / 9 / <9. Multiply each probability by the 90-day median sold-comp price for that grade, and sum to get expected value (EV).
Net profit = EV − raw price − grader fee − return shipping − eBay sales fee. The eBay fee is 13.25% of expected sale price plus $0.30 per transaction, toggleable in the header. The verdict is GRADE if net profit exceeds $20 — that's the threshold below which the round-trip risk and time isn't worth the upside.
A grader is flagged insufficient sample if total_graded is below 50 — probability estimates need a baseline of submissions to be meaningful, and on tiny samples a single oddly-graded card distorts the rate.
Raw prices come from PriceCharting loose comps as of 2026-05-04, manually transcribed in
raw_prices_seed.json. Pop counts and per-grade sale comps come from public
PSA POP Report and recent eBay sold listings.
Grading economics & partner-data integration
Cardboard Assets is in active discussion with commercial pop-data providers. The optimizer's current coverage is the 16 most-traded cards we hand-seeded with confidence. Full coverage of the 45,000+ cards in our universe activates the moment the commercial integration completes.
The math is unchanged at scale. The verdict structure, the per-grader probability bars, and the EV breakdown are the same for one card or 45,000.