The Shining Fates cards worth grading are the ones whose PSA 10 price clears the raw price by more than the grading fee — in practice, the Shiny Vault secret-rare VMAX cards, led by Charizard VMAX and Ditto VMAX. Most of the set's base-level holos and common VMAX reprints don't clear that bar, so grading them is a losing bet before shipping costs even enter the picture. Shining Fates released in English on February 19, 2021, after debuting in Japan as Shiny Star V on November 20, 2020, and became tournament-legal on March 5, 2021, according to Bulbapedia and StockX. The set carries 195 cards, including more than 100 Shiny Pokémon and over 30 Pokémon V and VMAX cards, which is why its grading value varies so widely from one card to the next.
Table of Contents
- What grading actually costs right now
- The cards that clear the bar
- The cards that don't clear the bar
- How to decide on a specific card
- Frequently Asked Questions
What grading actually costs right now
Grading only pays off if the PSA 10 premium exceeds the fee. PSA's cheapest currently-active service tier is Regular at $79.99 per card, because all four lower-cost Value tiers — Value Bulk, Value, Value Plus, and Value Max — were paused on June 2, 2026 while PSA works through a submission backlog reported near 10 million cards, according to Misprint.com and CardGrader.ai's 2026 industry reporting. Faster turnaround costs more.
Express runs $149 for cards valued up to $2,500, Super Express is $349 for up to $5,000, and Walk-Through is $599 for up to $10,000, per the same Misprint.com report. For most Shining Fates cards, Regular at $79.99 is the only tier worth considering, since few cards in the set are valuable enough to justify the higher caps. That $80 minimum sets the real test for this set: a card has to gain at least that much in PSA 10 condition over its raw price, plus shipping and insurance, before grading makes financial sense.
The cards that clear the bar
Shiny Vault Charizard VMAX (#SV107/SV122) is the set's flagship chase card and the clearest case for grading. It trades raw around $154 and reaches about $246 in PSA 10, with a PSA 10 population of 134 graded copies, according to PokeInvesting. That roughly $90 gap comfortably covers the Regular grading fee, even before factoring in the card's overall demand. Pricing on this card isn't perfectly uniform across trackers.
SportsCardPro lists the same PSA 10 Charizard VMAX at $153.75 as of September 6, 2026, while Dittobase lists it at $248, a gap wide enough that either figure should be read as a rough range rather than an exact number, per SportsCardPro and Dittobase. Even at the lower figure, the raw-to-PSA-10 spread still clears the grading fee. Shiny Vault Ditto VMAX (#SV119/SV122) is the other strong grading candidate. It sells raw for roughly $14 to $16 but reaches about $134 in PSA 10 based on recent sales data, a premium large enough to cover grading costs several times over, according to PokePrices. Of the two, Ditto VMAX offers the better ratio of gain to raw cost, since the card itself is cheap to acquire before grading.
The cards that don't clear the bar
Most of the set's Shiny Vault VMAX cards fall well short of justifying a grading fee. Shiny Vault Rillaboom VMAX (#SV106) carries a raw near-mint price of only $2.48, and Shiny Vault Toxtricity VMAX (#SV113) sits at $4.11, both far below any plausible grading cost regardless of what a PSA 10 copy might fetch, according to PokeInvesting. Grading either one would cost more than the card is worth even before a PSA 10 premium is added.
Mid-tier cards tell the same story. Suicune (#SV022) reaches about $53.58 in PSA 10 and Crobat VMAX reaches about $46, both below the $79.99 Regular fee, according to SportsCardPro and Card Codex. Yveltal (#46) comes in at $95.33 in PSA 10, just above the fee line, but the margin leaves little room for shipping, insurance, or a lower-than-expected grade. This pattern holds across most of the set: outside the Shiny Vault secret rares, Shining Fates cards generally don't carry enough of a PSA 10 premium to make grading worthwhile.
How to decide on a specific card
The math is simple once you have both numbers. Check the card's current raw price and its PSA 10 price, subtract one from the other, and compare that gap to the grading fee plus shipping and insurance.
This synthesis follows directly from the pricing data on Charizard VMAX, Ditto VMAX, Rillaboom VMAX, Toxtricity VMAX, Suicune, Crobat VMAX, and Yveltal cited above. Because PSA 10 and raw prices move over time, rerun this check close to when you plan to submit a card rather than relying on older figures.
- Pull the raw near-mint price and the PSA 10 price from a tracker like PokeInvesting, PokePrices, or SportsCardPro.
- Subtract the raw price from the PSA 10 price to get the gross premium.
- Subtract PSA's $80 Regular fee, plus shipping and insurance, from that premium.
- If the result is comfortably positive, grading is worth considering; if it's near zero or negative, it isn't.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is any non-Shiny-Vault card in Shining Fates worth grading?
Based on the available pricing data, no — mid-tier cards like Suicune and Crobat VMAX fall below PSA's $79.99 Regular fee in PSA 10, and only Yveltal clears it, with little margin to spare.
Why does PSA 10 pricing differ between trackers for the same card?
Trackers like SportsCardPro and Dittobase pull from different recent sales, which is why Charizard VMAX's PSA 10 price ranges from about $153.75 to $248 depending on the source.
Can I still use PSA's cheaper Value tiers for Shining Fates cards?
No — PSA paused all four Value tiers (Value Bulk, Value, Value Plus, Value Max) on June 2, 2026 while working through a backlog near 10 million cards, leaving Regular at $79.99 as the cheapest active option.
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