Pikachu ex
Should you grade it?

Pikachu ex

Ascended Heroes · #234 — what it sells for at each grade from real recorded sales, what each grading route costs, and what you keep after fees on each side of the world. Full price page →

The numbers do not favour grading
$177Raw / ungraded133 confirmed sales
$457PSA 101,369 confirmed sales
25%Modelled chance of a 10from a conservative prior — we hold NO population data for this card, so this is an assumption, not a measurement

Cost basis changes what you keep, not what the card is worth: the market price above is what the card sells for, and your cost is only ever subtracted from it. The condition line is your read of your own copy — we have not seen it, and telling us what to assume is the only way a probability on this page has a real basis.

What this card actually sells for, grade by grade

One row per grade, priced on that grade's OWN recorded sales and nothing else. A grade with fewer than 3 confirmed sales gets no price — it abstains and says why. We never fill an empty grade in from the grades either side of it, because a modelled number sitting in a price column reads as an observation.

GradePriceConfidenceConfirmed salesWhat sits behind it
Raw (ungraded)$177High 4/5133133 confirmed sales · 125 sales recorded in the last 90 days
PSA 10$457High 4/51,3691,369 confirmed sales (1,383 of them survived the outlier fence and set the price) · 17 inferred (a sale reconstructed from a listing disappearing — not a confirmed transaction, and excluded from the count above) · Snkrdunk ×1309, Yahoo! Japan Auctions ×48, Mercari Japan ×12 · they sold between $201 and $860 · 914 sales recorded in the last 90 days
PSA 9$202High 4/5131131 confirmed sales (128 of them survived the outlier fence and set the price) · Snkrdunk ×121, Yahoo! Japan Auctions ×7, Mercari Japan ×3 · they sold between $132 and $361 · 84 sales recorded in the last 90 days
PSA 8abstained0No recorded sale of a PSA 8 — nothing to price.
BGS 10abstained1Only 1 confirmed sale of a BGS 10 — below the 3 this page requires, so we publish no price and do not interpolate one from the grades either side.
BGS 9.5abstained1Only 1 confirmed sale of a BGS 9.5 — below the 3 this page requires, so we publish no price and do not interpolate one from the grades either side.
CGC 10abstained1Only 1 confirmed sale of a CGC 10 — below the 3 this page requires, so we publish no price and do not interpolate one from the grades either side.
CGC 9.5abstained0No recorded sale of a CGC 9.5 — nothing to price.
ARS 10abstained2Only 2 confirmed sales of an ARS 10 — below the 3 this page requires, so we publish no price and do not interpolate one from the grades either side.
ARS 9abstained1Only 1 confirmed sale of an ARS 9 — below the 3 this page requires, so we publish no price and do not interpolate one from the grades either side.
How confident are we in each of these prices?

There is no weighting and no hidden formula here. We ask five plain questions about the sales behind a price and the rating is simply how many we can answer yes to. Every threshold is one our pricing engine already uses to decide whether it trusts its own answer — none was invented for this rating. A grade we publish no price for gets no rating either.

Raw (ungraded) · High (4 of 5)
  • Enough sales to have a middle — 133 confirmed sales at this exact grade (the observation count beside this rung also includes 5 rows reconstructed from a listing’s own lifecycle rather than a confirmed sale — those never count toward this check)
  • Those sales agree with each other — The middle half of them spread 19% around the median
  • The market traded it recently — Most recent sale today
  • More than one marketplace — Sales came from 3 different marketplaces
  • Dated by the venue, not by us — 101 of 133 came from venues that publish no sale date, so those dates are the day we recorded the sale — an upper bound on when it actually traded
PSA 10 · High (4 of 5)
  • Enough sales to have a middle — 1369 confirmed sales at this exact grade (the observation count beside this rung also includes 17 rows reconstructed from a listing’s own lifecycle rather than a confirmed sale — those never count toward this check)
  • Those sales agree with each other — The middle half of them spread 30% around the median
  • The market traded it recently — Most recent sale today
  • More than one marketplace — Sales came from 3 different marketplaces
  • Dated by the venue, not by us — 1321 of 1369 came from venues that publish no sale date, so those dates are the day we recorded the sale — an upper bound on when it actually traded
PSA 9 · High (4 of 5)
  • Enough sales to have a middle — 131 confirmed sales at this exact grade
  • Those sales agree with each other — The middle half of them spread 24% around the median
  • The market traded it recently — Most recent sale 2 days ago
  • More than one marketplace — Sales came from 3 different marketplaces
  • Dated by the venue, not by us — 124 of 131 came from venues that publish no sale date, so those dates are the day we recorded the sale — an upper bound on when it actually traded

Each price is the recency-weighted median of that grade’s own confirmed sales, after an outlier fence drops the freak results at either end — so a recent sale counts for more than an old one, and one strange price cannot move the number. The count beside it is how many confirmed sales sit behind it, and the range is what they actually printed. It is the same figure the grading engine below prices from, so every line of arithmetic on this page starts here.

Every grading route, costed

Fees, turnaround and declared-value caps are the real published schedules. "Keep if 10 / 9 / 8" is what you would be left with in that scenario: the recorded price at that grade, less the selling fee, less what the card cost you and what grading cost. Those are outcomes, not forecasts. The expected value column blends them by probability and is published only where that probability has a real basis.

Grader routeFeeTurnaroundValue capKeep if 10Keep if 9Keep if 8Expected valueROI
CGC Economy$17.0090d$200We cannot publish a price for a CGC 10 or a CGC 9 of this card — no CGC slab of it has sold often enough for us to price one, and both are needed to weigh this route, so it abstains.
BGS Base$17.9575d$500We cannot publish a price for a BGS 10 or a BGS 9 of this card — no BGS slab of it has sold often enough for us to price one, and both are needed to weigh this route, so it abstains.
PSA Japan Value · submitted in Japan$31.0045d$500$183−$38.55We hold no population data for this card, so the chance of a 10 is a prior, not a measurement. The per-outcome numbers above are real; a single blended expected value would not be. Tell us what grade to assume and we will run it.
BGS Standard$34.9545d$1,500We cannot publish a price for a BGS 10 or a BGS 9 of this card — no BGS slab of it has sold often enough for us to price one, and both are needed to weigh this route, so it abstains.
CGC Standard$35.0025d$1,000We cannot publish a price for a CGC 10 or a CGC 9 of this card — no CGC slab of it has sold often enough for us to price one, and both are needed to weigh this route, so it abstains.
PSA Japan Regular · submitted in Japan$70.0010d$1,499$144−$77.55We hold no population data for this card, so the chance of a 10 is a prior, not a measurement. The per-outcome numbers above are real; a single blended expected value would not be. Tell us what grade to assume and we will run it.
BGS Express$79.9510d$2,500We cannot publish a price for a BGS 10 or a BGS 9 of this card — no BGS slab of it has sold often enough for us to price one, and both are needed to weigh this route, so it abstains.
PSA Regular$79.9935d$1,500$134−$87.54We hold no population data for this card, so the chance of a 10 is a prior, not a measurement. The per-outcome numbers above are real; a single blended expected value would not be. Tell us what grade to assume and we will run it.
PSA Express$149.0010d$2,500$64.67−$157We hold no population data for this card, so the chance of a 10 is a prior, not a measurement. The per-outcome numbers above are real; a single blended expected value would not be. Tell us what grade to assume and we will run it.
PSA Super Express$349.008d$5,000−$135−$357We hold no population data for this card, so the chance of a 10 is a prior, not a measurement. The per-outcome numbers above are real; a single blended expected value would not be. Tell us what grade to assume and we will run it.
PSA Walk-Through$599.006d$10,000−$385−$607We hold no population data for this card, so the chance of a 10 is a prior, not a measurement. The per-outcome numbers above are real; a single blended expected value would not be. Tell us what grade to assume and we will run it.

We hold NO population report for this card, so we cannot measure how often it comes back a 10. Any probability on this page is therefore an assumption, and is labelled as one.

We can price an ARS slab because ARS slabs sell in public and we record those sales. We cannot tell you your chance of getting a 10 from ARS: that needs population data — how many of each grade ARS has issued for this card — and we hold none. ARS publishes no population report of the kind PSA, CGC and BGS do. So there is no “submit to ARS” route on this page, and we will not model one.

Cost basis used: $177 — the median of the confirmed ungraded sales we hold, because you have not told us what you paid. Selling venue modelled: eBay at 13.25% plus $0.40; shipping $5.00.

Grade it — then sell it where?

The half of the question a one-market calculator cannot answer. Hoshino holds Japanese and Western recorded sales for the same card at the same grade. Each side is priced on its own sales, netted at that side's real selling fee. Fee-net only: cross-border shipping, import duty and customs are not modelled, and a side without enough confirmed sales abstains rather than being estimated from the other.

No recorded sale of a PSA 10 in the West — nothing to price.

The same card in a different grader’s holder

Two graders can slab the same card at the same grade and the market pays differently for each. Every price below is the figure the ladder above publishes — a rung that abstains there abstains here — netted at the real selling fee of the venue those slabs actually sold on. Where the two graders’ slabs trade in different markets, the freight and import tax for that corridor are in the conversion cost.

ARS 10 vs PSA 10

The price-by-grade table on this page abstains on ARS 10 for this card, so this comparison abstains on it too rather than publish two different answers in one place.

We can price an ARS slab because ARS slabs sell in public and we record those sales. We cannot tell you your chance of getting a 10 from ARS: that needs population data — how many of each grade ARS has issued for this card — and we hold none. ARS publishes no population report of the kind PSA, CGC and BGS do. So there is no “submit to ARS” route on this page, and we will not model one.

ARS 9 vs PSA 9

We hold one confirmed sale of an ARS 9 of this card, and one trade is an anecdote rather than a price. So we publish nothing at this rung, and we do not borrow a figure from a neighbouring grade or from a different grader to fill it.

We can price an ARS slab because ARS slabs sell in public and we record those sales. We cannot tell you your chance of getting a 10 from ARS: that needs population data — how many of each grade ARS has issued for this card — and we hold none. ARS publishes no population report of the kind PSA, CGC and BGS do. So there is no “submit to ARS” route on this page, and we will not model one.

BGS 10 vs PSA 10

We hold one confirmed sale of a BGS 10 of this card, and one trade is an anecdote rather than a price. So we publish nothing at this rung, and we do not borrow a figure from a neighbouring grade or from a different grader to fill it.

Questions people actually ask about grading Pikachu ex

Is Pikachu ex (Ascended Heroes) worth grading?

We will not answer that with a number for this card. Where a grade has too few confirmed sales of its own, we publish no price for it and we do not interpolate one from the grades either side. Hoshino reports recorded transactions. Nothing here is investment advice, a valuation, or a prediction of what grade any individual card will receive.

What does a PSA 10 Pikachu ex sell for?

The recency-weighted median of its confirmed sales is $457, from 1,369 confirmed sales ranging $201 to $860, recorded on Snkrdunk, Yahoo! Japan Auctions, Mercari Japan.

PSA or CGC for Pikachu ex?

On fees, the cheapest modelled routes are CGC Economy at $17.00 and PSA Japan Value at $31.00. On resale we cannot compare them for this card: Only 1 confirmed sale of a CGC 10 — below the 3 this page requires, so we publish no price and do not interpolate one from the grades either side. We will not estimate what a CGC slab of it would fetch from PSA sales — a different slab is a different market.

Should I sell Pikachu ex in Japan or the West?

We cannot answer that for this card. Both sides have to clear the same evidence bar independently, and this card does not have enough confirmed sales on both sides of the world at the same grade.

How much does it cost to grade a card?

The fees we model, dated and taken from each grader's published schedule: CGC Economy $17.00 (90 business days, declared value up to $200); BGS Base $17.95 (75 business days, declared value up to $500); SGC (vintage) $30.00 (20 business days, declared value up to $1,500); PSA Japan Value $31.00 (45 business days, declared value up to $500); BGS Standard $34.95 (45 business days, declared value up to $1,500); CGC Standard $35.00 (25 business days, declared value up to $1,000); PSA Japan Regular $70.00 (10 business days, declared value up to $1,499); BGS Express $79.95 (10 business days, declared value up to $2,500); PSA Regular $79.99 (35 business days, declared value up to $1,500); PSA Express $149.00 (10 business days, declared value up to $2,500); PSA Super Express $349.00 (8 business days, declared value up to $5,000); PSA Walk-Through $599.00 (6 business days, declared value up to $10,000). Shipping is modelled at $5.00 per card. A service whose current fee we do not hold abstains from this page rather than being priced with a guess.

Can you tell me what grade my copy will get?

No, and nobody can. We have not seen your card. The chance of a 10 used on this page is 25%, drawn from a conservative prior — we hold NO population data for this card, so this is an assumption, not a measurement. Where we hold no population data and you have told us nothing about your copy, we publish the per-outcome numbers and withhold the blended expectation instead of inventing a probability. Hoshino reports recorded transactions. Nothing here is investment advice, a valuation, or a prediction of what grade any individual card will receive.

What the words on this page mean

Confirmed sale
A completed transaction we recorded on a venue we track. Every GRADE price on this page is built from these and nothing else. The one figure that can come from somewhere else is the ungraded price, where a card has never sold raw on a venue we track but a marketplace publishes a guide figure for it — that row says so, and so does the cost-basis line that uses it.
Inferred sale
A sale reconstructed from a listing disappearing. Counted separately, never treated as confirmed, and never used to reach the minimum of 3.
Price-guide point
A marketplace's own published market or trend figure. Useful, but it is not a sale and is never printed as one.
Asking price
A live listing. What someone wants, not what anyone paid. It is not used on this page at all.
Abstained
We hold data, but not enough of it at that exact grade to state a price. We say so instead of interpolating from the grades either side.
Expected value
The average across grade outcomes weighted by how likely each is. It is not what you will get. Individual outcomes are the "keep if 10 / 9 / 8" columns.

Hoshino reports recorded transactions. Nothing here is investment advice, a valuation, or a prediction of what grade any individual card will receive.