Best Cards to Grade in the Base Era
The 7 best Base cards to grade across 5 sets, ranked by PSA 10 ROI. Gyarados 007 leads at 9.1x ($47.53 raw vs $1,174.46 in PSA 10).
ROI is the PSA 10 price against the raw price plus grading cost and PSA's value-tier upcharge, from live market prices and PSA population data. Cards are ranked highest ROI first.
| Rank | Card | Raw | PSA 10 | Gem rate | PSA 10 pop | ROI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gyarados 007 | $47.53 | $1,174.46 | 57.4% | 680 | 9.1x |
| 2 | Charizard 004 | $374.60 | $12,062.20 | 3.7% | 662 | 8.8x |
| 3 | Dark Dragonite 022 (First Edition Stamp) | $70.88 | $1,300.00 | 12.0% | 535 | 8.6x |
| 4 | Charizard 004 | $504.11 | $11,819.64 | 3.7% | 662 | 7.9x |
| 5 | Dragonite 019 (First Edition Stamp) | $98.66 | $1,744.85 | 13.2% | 533 | 7.0x |
| 6 | Dark Blastoise 020 (First Edition Stamp) | $71.25 | $1,019.41 | 14.0% | 684 | 6.7x |
| 7 | Dark Charizard 021 (First Edition Stamp) | $187.16 | $2,909.00 | 7.8% | 708 | 5.4x |