PalStars Grade: why a perfect 10 is worth chasing
PalStars Grade combines four sub-grades — centering, corners, edges and surface — weighting the weakest most heavily, so only about 1.2% of pulls come back as a flawless Gem Mint 10 and most raw cards settle at Mint 9 or Near Mint–Mint 8.
Updated 2026-08-02
- ✓Centering
- ✓Corners and edges
- ✓Surface
- ✓Why grade beats rarity on the board
Centering
Borders should sit within roughly 55/45 front and 75/25 back. Off-centre borders are the single most common reason a pack-fresh card caps below 10.
Corners and edges
Corners must be sharp with no fuzzing; factory cutting causes edge chipping that shows as tiny white specks under light. Either one alone can hold a card at 8.
Surface
Print lines, holo scratches and pack-slide marks live here. Foil parallels fail surface far more often than matte Commons.
Why grade beats rarity on the board
Score is rarity multiplied by grade, so a Gem Mint 10 on a mid rarity regularly outranks a low-grade chase card.
Reading the defect list
Every graded card lists its defects explicitly, which turns grading from a black box into something you can learn to predict.
Sub-grade methodology for centering, corners, edges and surface.