The Celebrations cards worth grading are the ones whose raw price already clears grading fees by a wide margin: the Classic Collection Umbreon Gold Star, and the two full-art Pikachu VMAX cards — though not equally. Everything else in the set is a weak grading candidate right now, because fees have gone up while most Celebrations singles haven't.
Celebrations is Pokémon's 25th-anniversary set, released October 8, 2021 and sold only in anniversary-branded products rather than standard booster boxes, according to Bulbapedia. It splits into two 25-card subsets: a "Classic Collection" of foil reprints from the game's early years, and a main set of new Pikachu, legendary, and mythical Pokémon cards, as detailed by Press Start. That split matters for grading, because the two subsets land in very different price tiers.
Table of Contents
- The Clear Winner — Umbreon Gold Star
- The Two Pikachu VMAX Cards Aren't Equal
- Why Mew and the Rest of the Set Don't Clear the Bar
- Why Grading Fees Just Became the Deciding Factor
- Cheaper Alternatives for Lower-Value Cards
The Clear Winner — Umbreon Gold Star
The Classic Collection's Umbreon Gold Star reprint (card #17) is the set's standout chase card by a wide margin. Third-party listings on Vintage Card Prices show PSA 10 copies asking roughly $175 to $799, according to Vintage Card Prices, figures that dwarf what common Celebrations cards fetch in any grade.
That spread leaves plenty of room above grading costs even at the low end of the range. A $175 floor and a $799 ceiling both clear a $79.99 grading fee easily, which is why this card is the one collectors most often pull straight out of a pack and send in without a second thought.
The Two Pikachu VMAX Cards Aren't Equal
The main subset's two full-art Pikachu VMAX cards get lumped together by casual collectors, but their grading math diverges sharply. Flying Pikachu VMAX (#007/025) is the stronger of the two: completed eBay sales for PSA 10 copies have landed around $100 to $125, per eBay's completed listings. That's comfortably above a grading fee, with enough margin to absorb a card that grades a point lower than hoped.
Surfing Pikachu VMAX (#009/025) is the one to think twice about. PSA 10 copies tracked by Sports Card Investor sold for roughly $21.50 to $31.00, according to Sports Card Investor. That barely covers the grading fee itself, so a Surfing Pikachu VMAX only makes financial sense to grade if it's part of a larger bulk submission or already graded at a discounted rate.
Why Mew and the Rest of the Set Don't Clear the Bar
Mew is the next-most-valuable card outside the Classic Collection, but it tops out around $62 raw, according to Card Codex. That's well under typical grading fees, meaning a single Mew sent in alone is likely to lose money even if it comes back a 10.
The rest of the main subset and most of the Classic Collection reprints sit at or below Mew's price point, which rules out individual grading for nearly all of them. The practical takeaway: outside of Umbreon Gold Star and the two Pikachu VMAX full arts, Celebrations cards generally need to be graded in bulk, at a steep discount, or not at all. Sending a $20-$30 card to a $79.99 tier only makes sense if the grading cost itself is much lower than PSA's standard fee.
Why Grading Fees Just Became the Deciding Factor
PSA's own fee structure changed the math for this entire set. As of a May 28, 2026 notice, PSA temporarily paused new submissions to its four cheapest "Value" tiers — Value Bulk, Value, Value Plus, and Value Max — because of a backlog approaching 10 million cards, according to PSA. That leaves Regular, at $79.99 per card with a 40-to-50 business day turnaround, as PSA's lowest currently active tier.
That pause is the reason the threshold for "worth it" moved so high. At $79.99 or more per card, only Celebrations cards reliably selling for roughly $150 to $200 or more raw in top condition clear the cost, which is effectively just the Umbreon Gold Star and the two full-art Pikachu VMAX cards, per PSA's notice. A card that would have cleared PSA's old $20 Value tier can now sit in a binder losing money the moment it's submitted.
- Umbreon Gold Star (#17, Classic Collection): clears grading fees comfortably
- Flying Pikachu VMAX (#007/025): clears grading fees with moderate margin
- Surfing Pikachu VMAX (#009/025): barely breaks even, bulk-only
- Mew and all other singles: raw value too low to justify grading alone
Cheaper Alternatives for Lower-Value Cards
For any Celebrations card that doesn't clear PSA's Regular fee, competing grading companies remain less expensive while PSA's Value tiers stay paused. One grading cost guide cites CGC's bulk tier at about $17 per card and BGS's base tier (no subgrades) at about $14.95, according to AllVintageCards.
Those tiers can make sense for cards like Surfing Pikachu VMAX or Mew, where a PSA Regular submission would eat most or all of the card's resale value. A $17 to $15 fee leaves far more room for a $25 to $60 card to turn a profit than an $80 PSA Regular fee does, even though PSA grading typically commands a premium on resale compared to CGC or BGS.
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