Grading Assistant

Overview

The Grading Assistant helps you decide whether to send a card off for professional grading instead of selling it raw. For every card, RocketVault pulls live PSA 9 and PSA 10 comparable sales, subtracts the per-card grading fee and selling fees, and shows what you would actually net at each grade outcome — not a prediction, just the math.

The Grading entry point lives in the sidebar under Research → Grading.

What it shows you

For each card, the Assistant returns:

• Raw price — what the card is selling for ungraded today.
• PSA 9 comp — current market price for the same card slabbed at PSA 9.
• PSA 10 comp — current market price at PSA 10.
• EV range — what you would net at PSA 9 (low end) and PSA 10 (high end), after grading fees, return shipping, and selling fees.

You also get four photo-based pillar scores (centering / corners / edges / surface). The displayed overall score is the lowest visible pillar, not an average, so a damaged edge cannot be canceled out by strong centering.

Before scoring, RocketVault runs a visual evidence pass over the full card plus dedicated crops of all four edges and corners. A second model independently checks the same evidence and makes the scoring decision. If the real cardstock boundary is hidden by a sleeve, holder, glare, blur, or framing—or the two checks disagree—the result is Not gradable and no grading value is calculated.

Supported graders

The fee schedule covers four grading services and all common service tiers:

Fees come from the most-recently-verified rate card and fold into the EV calculation. The dashboard surfaces the Last verified date so you know whether a grader has just announced a price change.

How to run an analysis

The unified Grading page (/grading)

The Grading page is a single screen for filtering, picking, analyzing, and reading results.

1. Filter with the GradingFilterBar — set, year, player, status, and free-text search.
2. Select the cards you want to analyze with the row checkboxes.
3. Toggle "Include prices" if you want the RocketVault Pricing comp + EV computation in this run. Off by default for a faster condition-only pass; turn it on when you want the dollar numbers too.
4. Click Analyze. RocketVault works through the cards in the background and shows progress until the analysis is ready. You can analyze up to 50 cards at a time.

When the job finishes you'll see an EV range and pillar scores on every gradable card. Candidates are ranked by the conservative PSA 9 net outcome; PSA 10 remains visible as upside but does not control the ordering.

Per-card detail (/grading/:cardId)

Click any card row to open its detail page. You will see the same centering review and price range there. RocketVault does not predict a PSA grade.

From any card's detail page

You don't have to go to the Grading workspace first. On a card's detail page, use Analyze centering beside the front/back and image-edit controls. RocketVault runs the analysis without leaving the card, then puts the centering guide and score directly on the photo you're viewing. The full Grading Analysis panel remains farther down the page for the corner, edge, surface, and condition details. It is included for every account.

Bulk candidate picker (/grading/bulk)

Bulk Grading ranks candidates by their PSA 9 result and lets sellers review inventory in manageable pages.

Reading the EV range

The two numbers the dashboard shows are calibrated to net dollars after every cost — that's what makes them comparable.

• EV @ PSA 9 = (PSA 9 comp × (1 − selling fee %)) − grading fee − return shipping
• EV @ PSA 10 = (PSA 10 comp × (1 − selling fee %)) − grading fee − return shipping

So if a card shows +$11 to +$140, you would clear an extra $11 over selling raw if it grades PSA 9, and an extra $140 if it grades PSA 10. If either estimate is negative, grading would lose money at that grade.

When a comp is missing (rarely-traded card, no recent PSA 9 sale, etc.) the dashboard shows "—" for that estimate instead of fabricating a number.

Inspecting condition on a card

Click any card from the candidates table to drill into its per-card grading detail page. The page is built around one question: what's the condition of this card, at a glance? No scrolling, no decoding rulers — the verdict is the first thing you see.

Condition summary

The top of the page is a single summary with everything you need to size up the card in under a second:

• Overall — the lowest available pillar score (centering, corners, edges, surface). This follows a weakest-link view of condition.
• Pillar chips — Centering · Corners · Edges · Surface. Each shows its score and is color-coded green / yellow / red so a weak pillar jumps out.
• Per-side evidence — the front and back rows identify the worst corner, worst edge, surface issues, and a plain-English edge-by-edge read.
• No score — no score or price range is shown when the check cannot support a confident condition call. This can happen with clear photos too. Review the listed reasons before deciding whether to retake them.

Hover (or tap) any corner to zoom

The card photos render as the original images — no rulers, no labels obstructing the corners. To inspect a corner up close:

• Desktop: hover any of the four corners. A 4× zoomed popout appears next to the card, with the corner's score and a "Worst corner" tag if applicable.
• Mobile: tap a corner. A bottom sheet opens with TL / TR / BL / BR tabs. Pinch or double-tap inside the sheet for an even closer look. The worst corner pre-selects when you open it.

The corner the analysis flagged as worst wears a subtle pulsing red ring on the card image itself, so your eye is drawn there before you even start hovering.

Centering guide (optional)

A single button in the page header toggles a centering guide — four thin lines drawn on the card image at the detected card-art boundary. The pair on the side that's bottlenecking the centering score (left/right vs. top/bottom) renders thicker and color-keyed to severity. The guide is on by default and your preference is remembered across cards.

The guide is intentionally minimal — no numbers baked into the picture and no dimension bars over the card art. The per-side ratios and condition evidence remain visible in the summary above the images.

Connecting the dots with the rest of the app

• Status pipeline: cards with status Ended (on the Cards page) are valid grading candidates. Run them through the Assistant before deciding whether to relist raw or send for grading.
• Relist path: if you skip grading and relist an ended card, RocketVault uses eBay's relist operation and saves the new eBay item ID back to the same card.

Common questions

Does the Assistant cover non-sports cards? Yes — anything with a PSA / SGC / BGS / CGC market. Pop reports drive the comp prices, not categories.

Why doesn't the EV use a weighted blend of PSA 9 / PSA 10? Because the blend depends on a grade prediction, and we don't predict. Showing the two endpoints separately lets you apply your own confidence to the call.

Can I override the per-card return shipping estimate? Default is $2.50/card based on a typical 5-15 card submission. Per-submission overrides are coming with the submission builder — track the changelog for that.

Are fees automatically updated when graders raise prices? The schedule is verified by hand and dated. We update it on each grader announcement; the Last verified date in the dashboard tells you whether you're on the current rate card.

What if my card has a borderless or no-detected-border layout? True full-bleed cards skip the centering pillar while corners, edges, and surface are still inspected. That is different from an obscured cardstock boundary: if the system cannot tell the card edge from sleeve or holder plastic, it stops with No score and asks for clearer photos.

Why did the condition check end without a score? A check can stop because an edge is hidden, it is not sure enough, or the two checks disagree about a defect. Clear photos can still leave the check uncertain; the second check may not have run. Review the reasons shown. Retake the photos if an edge is hidden or glare or blur covers the card. Keep the full card in the frame and use even, diffuse light. No condition score or grading value is shown when the check ends without a score.